IRAN 2008

Hi to you!
They told me I had to write it down. So here it is. A short one.

4 characters: Helena, Jaan, Taavi, Birgit (in order of appearance)

It all started in the winter or maybe springtime. Helena wanted to go somewhere far. Me wanted to go somewhere far and cheap which kind of disqualified Helena’s 1st choice Latin America. What do you do then? Choose Iran.

After countless of hours on the web, the itinerary kinda tied itself together. Drive to Riga, take a plane to somewhere, take a bus from somewhere to Iran. Defining somewhere was the tricky part. It could have been Azerbaijan, it could have been Armenia. None of the embassies replied to the email so it didn’t make it easier anyhow. In the end plane tickets+visa cost to Armenia was cheaper, so there it was.

Then Taavi heard about the idea and liked it and in early June we got tickets Riga-Yerevan. Taavi managed to buy them for a different date though... Visa applications got underway to sooner and later (soon- Jaan, late-others). In mid-July I was fully equipped with a visa, others actually got theirs a week or a day before the actual trip.

Taavi actually told about the plan to Birgit as well who told Taavi to go somewhere dark... Later she actually started liking the idea. Go figure.

So, come last week of August we had:
1) plane tickets
2) visas
3) Lonely planets
4) No plans whatsoever besides some vague knowledge about major sightseeing events.

Regarding the last one the only planning conference turned out to be drinking beer, Taavi watching TV and me surfing the web. I don’t even know what Helena did but she didnt pay any attention to me.

Anyway, here cometh Thursday August 28.
We were supposed to set sail from Tallinn at 16 initially, then 16.30 and we did leave around 17.30 with plans for a stopover in Pärnu for some final shopping. That concluded the wonderful SATNAV told us that we’d be arriving around 40 mins before the plane leaving. Cue some fast driving, some nervous minutes wondering if the check-in closed an hour before the departure. It didnt.

Friday August 29
The thing with the plane was that it departed at 22.30 or so, arriving in Yerevan 4 hours later which made the arrival time considering the time difference a cool 4.30 am with the chance to do some midnight visa application+drawing blanks from the ATM in Taavi’s case (as it turned out later the Armenian bank certainly didnt draw any blanks!) The only plan we had was to take a bus to Tehran at 9. No, we didnt have bookings. So when all the taxi drivers, and there were many, started to offer rides straight to the border, it didnt seem such a bad idea. Especially since the original 250 dollar price came down faster than most of Russian jets. For a cool 170 dollars (for 400 km/7 hour ride) we got an Azamat Bagatov lookalike with a Volga that was cool in 1986 (only best the best in communist ranks had it). It did look like a Mercedes from the back. For added value we had the pleasure of pushing it to make the engine start. For real.



Helena enjoying the ride

Off we went then towards south of Armenia alongside Turkish and later Iranian border with the lights of US military bases just a few kms away from us. If you're not exactly mr current affairs, just for you – Armenian-Turkish border is closed as tightly as a Scotsman wallet. So is Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Keywords being here 1915 and 1988-1994.



Somewhere on the road

As some were dozing off the back we did make a brief stop to buy some fruit on the road from the many street vendors sleeping next to their huge piles of watermelons. The fruit thing caught on for the rest of the trip.

The caucasian sun soon made its way up and by that time we had reached the mountains. Basically around 250 kms or so of the trip was in the mountains which in Europe can be found only in the Alps and perhaps in one or two places in Carpathians. In other words – high and steep. I can remember that the highest pass was at 2500 meters and by no means it was the highest point.

The driver... he was funny. More gifted of us could conversate in Russian about various matters, others just slept. As it turned out, this kind of trip is a good starter since the driver can get you acquainted with local customs. Or find a good spot for some watermelon picnic. Just make sure you dont get a car running on natural gas in Armenia, it takes forever to fill it up. Every 2 hours.

I am not bothered to count all the towns we passed cause i dont remember them. Maybe Goris since we turned right there. Left led to Nagorno-Karabakh. Yes, the self-proclaimed republic which besides fighting off Azeris in early 90’s claimed a large junk of Azerbaijan itself. Albeit with slight help from their Armenian brothers. There was some reminders of the war itself around such as the „former Azeri villages“...

I do have to mention a visit to the roadside diner. It didnt look like a diner and most of the diners didn't, in fact. If you ask for a menu you get back... WHat do you want? No, what do you have? We have everything! We had some of everything then. Plus a shot of vodka with an ex-admiral who was sitting there (it was around 1 pm!).

So, the border. Oh yes, just 8 kms before the border we consumed our last beers before Iran. You know, curfew on alcohol and all that... Now, the big moment, girls dressed up (fun!) and to the border station. Armenian side was reminiscent of some other country. First checkpoint, then the main house with first guy looking at passport, second guy checking stuff and looking at passport, third guy writing down data, fourth guy checking passport, fith guy to make sure the fourth guy was correct. An hour or so. There was 2 more checkpoints before the border itself. Also, the mst important stuff was done by Russian border guards.

Now, the border itself. It is a small river in a very deep valley between steep mountains, haveing already separated Russian and Persian empires. Just a walk over the bridges and we were there. 2 checkpoints (1 wasnt even bothered), luggage check and thats it. We’re in. What do you do? Change money, get some water and go. With a taxi? Yes please. We really wanted to get to a bigger down before nightfall therefore we opted for Tabriz. Initially the taxi offered to take us to Jolfa (1/3 way) for 15 dollars. Competitors were seriously disappointed that we didnt opt for their 40 dollar rides. I bet it was really good though.

The ride itself was this time really cool. A Peugeot Pars (405 but still produced over there, kind of national car with 206 and Paykan. Oh, Paykan is an Iranian version of Hillman Hunter. They stopped making them in 2005 and early 70s, respectively...), a winding road alongside the border river... The border itself reflected the 90s conlict. Yerevan-Baku railway is right along the border (people who have taken the train in the 80’s remember constant face checks in the train) however, it is not in use. In some parts, rails have been taken up, here and there were abandoned railway cars...

In Jolfa it turned out that the last bus for Marand (almost near to Tabriz) had left. It also turned out that it is very difficult to find English speakers. WE did know before that they used Arabic alphabet though... In Marand it turned out that the last bus to Tabriz had left... In the end we got a 200 km ride for 50 dollars. Later it turned out that it wasnt exactly cheap. But we got there and were dropped off amid thousands of picnicers next to a highway. Friday is like a Sunday for them , you know. Even if you sit next to thousands of Paykans.

There came the second important finding. When looking mildly lost, people will approach. In fact, when looking mildly alive, people would approach you. They would say hello and ask where you from, mostly adding a quick question Alemagne/Germany? Nicht-nicht. So you think it might be cool to talk to them a bit. Well, as it turned out „hello“ and „where are you from“ were in most cases all English they spoke. This happened in every town and although in the beginning it made us feel like rockstars it got a bit tiresome later on.

Anyway, Tabriz. It is about 200 kms southeast of the border but still 600 kms to Tehran. Like most of the towns it is in a valley. It’s quite big, more than million people and the centre of Azarbaijan province. Now, let’s say something about the people in Iran. Of 70 million or so people around half are Persians who live mostly in the middle of the country. A whole quarter is Azeris who are mainly around Tabriz and northwest. Then there’s some Kurds in the west, Arabs in southeast and around Persian gulf, Turkmens in north and northeast, Baluchis in southeast, some Pushtus in east and Loris who are from somewhere i cant remember.

Anyway Tabriz is like most towns quite western in the centre. A big difference with cities seen later was the lack of old town which was apparently due to its proximity to Turks and some visits by other foreign powers. Notably, Tabriz was the capital of shortlived Iranian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1945-46.

Like all towns, there is some big mosques, a bazaar, a myriad of shops selling everuthing (including chemistry startup kits!), hamburger and kebab joints and teahouses.

The people, and there is many on the street, can be divided into two main subgroups. Men and women. Like everywhere, really. Basically, although i havent been to Portugal, i imagine men looked like Portugese. The younger ones. Latest fashion pants, shirts, hair, shades, facial hair, so on. The old ones looked more like Poles i.e. everybody’s got a ’tache. Women. Well, in Iran you gotta cover up your hair and have garments that hide your bodily features. Apparently the fashion police has cooled down lately cause we saw some very liberal definition of rules. Like scarves starting from close to the back to the head. Or tops that looked like tight shirts not the baggy stuff you would imagine. Of course you had your fair share of hair-to-toe black costumes with face covered also (they held it by teeth... have they not heard of buttons?). Oh, if you wonder about the bearded ones, there’s very few in Iran. They are almost exclusively mullahs (like your local Christian minister, but he works in a mosque) or in southeast (Baluchis/Pushtus).

Now, back to Tabriz. Of course we couldnt communicate the chosen hotel to the taxi driver so he took us to another one (4 ppl room cost around 13 dollars or something). In a way it was good, in a way bad. The girls didnt like it too much since showers were a bit small and toilets were not western but... you know, the footprint-type stuff. Good thing, we met Iman there. He was different from most of the local people by the fact that he actually spoke English. Therefore it was actually quite nice that he did have time to take us for a small walk to show around the city and also for some dinner.

There we go, food. Well, food is easy in Iran. Mostly they call it kebab. Kebabs can be different from a shashlik type (they call it shishlik kebab or something) to small grilled pieces of fillet. Kebab comes on a big loaf of white bread with two grilled tomatoes. Also there is a mountain of rice next to it. Then there’s stews. The main one is called khoresht and it can be different from being mostly meat with some onions and other veggies, to a total veggie khoresht. Basically, whatever your creativity tells you. It comes with a mountain of rice. Basically, everything comes with a mountain of rice. Then there’s also dizi. It’s called like that in Azerbaijan, Persians have another name for it as well but i can’t remember it. IT’s kinda like meat khoresht but comes in a clay pot. There you have to totally smash it with this little club to make it a very homogenous pulp. Then you pour it into another bowl and eat it with... a mountain of rice! They also like their fast food – burgers, pizzas and the like. Foodwise Iran is also a paradise for fruit-lovers with melons, watermelons, apples, pears, peaches, pomegranates available everywhere. Also, there are lot of sweets around – ardeh/halva being the most well known, i suppose. Drinks... there are juices, nectar with pulp (called rani, it is abso-f***ing (Google found this word and thought i started a p*rn blog)-lutely delicious), coke, pepsi, something yoghurt-like but salty and Delster. Delster is a local-made beer but with no alcohol in it. There’s a million flavors with malt, peach, lemon, apple, strawberry, raspberry coming to mind immediately. Besides haveing the word „beer“ on the label, there’s nothing more related to the noble malt-brew we know and love... It’s more like... cider without alcohol. Anyway, Delster is not the only brand, they even got Holsten and Tuborg but since European market alco.free beers have some alcohol in it, they cant sell it in Iran, so theirs taste differently and are made usually in Turkey. Ah, and then there are those delicious fresh drinks they make on the street. Some with milk some with not, some tasty (the one with datel and bananas...) some not...

Saturday August 30
Now, the first day of sightseeing. Also the day of actually making plans. Regarding the last phrase we bought tickets for two next days.

Speaking of sightseeing i actually find it the most boring part to describe. So we walked, saw a big gate (it was high... like 25+ meters high... apparently they used to push people down from there) from the Medieval Ages, a big mosque being built, a town hall built by ze Germanz, another mosque... As it was quite hot, definitely 30+ degrees we actually did get exhausted. Cue... a visit to a teahouse!

A teahouse, also known as chaykaneh is a local equivalent to a pub (copyright Lonely Planet). It can be fancy or not, like pubs you know but the people in there are exclusively, almost, men. What happens there? People drink loads of tea with lots of sugar (small cubes that you rinse in tea and then put in mouth) and smoke waterpipe (qalyan). Oh, i have to tell the sugar-rinsing background. Apparently back in the day some Brits brought sugar to Iran but they werent exactly fond of sharing the dough with mullahs. So the mullahs told the people that sugar is bad, bad-as-devil bad. Not wanting to commit heresy people stopped eating sugar so the poor Brits couldnt pay their mortgage anymore. Back they went to the mullahs and gave away some envelopes. Promptly all Iranians were told that sugar is still bad but if you rinse it in tea it would change colour making it not-quite-so bad. Sheep, wolves... Anyway, we managed to down 13 cups of tea, plus a qalyan round for the great sum of ... 2 dollars.

About money as well. The official currency is rial and 10000 rials is worth about a dollar. However, everyone’s speaking tomans. 10 rials is 1 toman (on the bills is written only rials, fortunately in English too although Persian numbers are quite easy to understand!). The thing is that rial is old Arabic money unit but toman is Persian.

Which leads me to another topic. Do not ever consider anything Iranian as Arabic. Yes, they have one religion (almost, Iranians are Shiite Muslims, most Arabs are Sunni Muslims), one alphabet, they look quite similar. How should i put it... Think you’re an Estonian (or Swede) and now compare our culture to say... Kazakhs. No offence, Borat. Yes, they think they’re much better.

Now, after loads of sightseeing and even more tea it was time to prepare for an overnight bus ride to Tehran. What do you need for a busride? Food and drinks. Yes, we were as smart. Now, at the first shop we went the owner spoke English. Good stuff. WE got free drinks and loaded our bags with fruits and some pistachhio nuts (Iran is the number one producer of those in the world, you know). It turned out all those things were free as well. And, we were invited for dinner. Since we were lacking time for that the guy told that we have to go and eat ice cream with him. Who were we to argue... Not only we got loads of ice cream, the guy also took us to the bus station and made sure we were on track to catch the right bus. In the end he asked if we permitted him to go since it was late...

Now, buses. Basically you can choose from two general kind of buses. 1) Mercedes. This includes any bus that looks like from the shah era (it ended in 1978...) 2) Volvo. To the big disappointment for non-Gotheburgians it also includes Scania. Or for that matter any new bus. Needless to say we used Volvos mostly. So, off we went in our nice seats (we were mostly given the front row! )

Sunday August 31
Tehran. Two new things in the very morning. First, taxi drivers, at tourist hotspots they were really tiresome and ready for rip-offs. However, there was at least one of us who really dug haggling! However, this time this person was not so affluent yet so we got our biggest ripoff, 4 dollars for a bout 5 km drive. It must be added tho that on a world scale of taxi drivers those guys were really soft.

Now, to our taxi driver. This guy would have been a close match to Schumacher had his dad bought him a go-cart. This was kind of Driving in Iran for Dummies for us. The only rule here was that there was no rules. Ok, i did actually saw a couple of times guys stopping at red lights. If you haven’t been to South Asia you cannot imagine how traffic looks like. The lanes dont matter. You can fit 4 cars on 2 lanes, you can turn left from the rightmost lane. The concept of blinkers is unknown, it is replaced by honking. Seat belts are for wussies. That’s about it.

Anyway, we got to the train station put our stuff away and headed out for some... yes, sightseeing!! However, in the train station, in guys restroom there was one line longer than for the pissers... for the mirrors!!

Anyway, off we went, to meet some teachers from Ahwaz (Arabs), to have our first subway ride, to see the enourmous bazaar and a mosque, to walk past the Golestan Palace (former royal palace), to lie down on park grass.

Oh well, royalties, shah... Iran was a royal state for about 2500 years up to 1978. For one reason or another, the shah (who had visited Tallinn in the 70s) was kicked out by revolutianaries including everyone from communists to muslim clerics. Happiness seemed just around the corner but then ayatollah Homeini took the country over from his revolution budies and the rest is, as they say, history. About the shah... It seemed that he had tried to modernize the country. Iran of 60s-70s seemed from the stuff I read to be on the course of „being Turkey“. Now, 30 years after the revolution, people who speak English hate their regime and government. One guy evenwent as far as wishing for a war with the US just to get the mullahs out. Anyway, the economy has become worse (state revenues are almost entirely dependent on oil, there are subsidies and price controls on food and energy – no wonder there’s electricity shortages with power switched off during the day) and personal liberties.... Like they say in Russia – we wanted the best, turned out as usual.

In the park we managed to meet on of the funniest guys around. In the beginning he came to us to tell that semi-hugging is totally not cool for Fashion/Hugging Police. Then the usual where are you from and so on... The only thing was that he didnt speak that much English so he got out his cell put on the loud speaker and had his friend (a she!) to translate all the stuff. It went on for a good 15 mins too! And he did look like Cristiano Ronaldo’s baby brother.

Anyway, it was good to have lunch in the park since the midday was getting a bit too hot. Fortunately brother of Cristiano was around to show us a cafe. Now, about cafes. Or restaurants. Basically, most of them are just like street diners which is understandable if you consider the average wages. Second, there’s those middle class/your typical Iranian restaurants. They look a bit better than street places and rely more on kebabs rather than burgers. On the upper end there’s the hotel restaurants- Basically i dont see any aspect that theyre better than those midscale restaurants besides having a menu in latin letters and in something they think is English but not necessarily so. All in all, the midscale places, like the one in Tehran, were the best.

After a lengthy meal and qalyan we actually did move on. On the way it was nice to see people taking time out en masse. You dont always have to hurry you know.

The next interesting happening was meeting another local dude. He was like most of them, keen to meet tourists, ask about what we had seen in Iran so far and so on. Interestingly though, it turned out that he had kept „internet contact“ with a swedish (lady)friend for quite a bit, therefore having a vague idea about Sweden. And the Baltics for that matter. But the cooles thing was that he also knew a Swedish footballer. He didnt quite remember the name first but he knew this guy was good in the Champions League. And that he was good looking. Oh... wait... THOMAS BROLIN!! You cant beat that.

Anyway, Tehran looks like quite a modern city. As it turned out it’s exactly what the shah had planned for. We did have a goal too – the jewels museum. We werent that much intersted in seeing ancient relics with descriptions in Farsi so instead we headed for the Jewels museum.

Jewels museum is located in the basement of some bank and as it turned out later, security was much much tougher than in airports. First you had to hand in all your luggage, including electronic devices. Then there was a metal detector and a search on the door. After you bought tickets there was another metal detector and search. I failed it about 4 times then they just gave up and blatantly waved me through. Inside there was jewels of every kind in ludicruous amounts, placed on every kind of household stuff. A travel mirror with a hundred or so diamonds? You got it. It was one of the best examples how the country was ran back in the day and why it didnt develop that well. Half of the explanations ran along the lines „and the shah visited the country x in 1867 and bought some diamonds on the way“. Anyways, the biggest draws were perhaps the biggest pink diamond in the world, just around 200 carats or so, some fancy robes with a few thousand diamonds and other gems, as well as the Peacock throne which was decorated with many tens of thousands of stones. The biggest surprise about it was that its backside was completely not covered with any stones.

After some museuming it was time for some travel plans and we headed to get some plane tickets to Kish Island. Everything was quite smooth in the office until to the point where it turned out that the airline office was already closed meaning that they good only promise that we had tickets booked but we needed to actually pick them up when we got to Kish. The best we managed to do was to persuade the girl in the office that she’d finalize the booking the first thing the next morning. The thing is that they dont have an online booking system. At least it’s not on after 5 pm. Airline tickets are written on paper and then they apparently call the airline that actually flies that flight. It seemed almost a miracle it was possible to check seat availability! Anyway, situation turned a bit worse when the girl that spoke English left and the other one started writing tickets. Suddenly she informed us that the flight back was not possible to give tickets, so she’d give back money. Aside from calculating the sum not correctly we were quite amazed at the change of mind. It took a good 10 minutes to persuade her call the other girl (during which time we first faced the notorious „no problem“ reply when the English got a bit too complicated). So, we did call the other one who hadnt changed her mind and took time to explain her colleague how the things should be. Well, it was all good for 5 minutes again, when the person-not-so-good-at-english started giving back the money. Cue another call to the girl speaking english, with many a „no problem“ said to us in the process. Well, in the end we took our money and one-way ticket as the person simply didnt want our money. Fair enough.

Some walking and seeing Irani Backstreet Boys posters here and there (rumour goes that they also might have been ayatollahs) we reached the US Den of Espionage. IT used to be known as the US embassy until it was stormed by overachieving islamic students. Some might say it cost Jimmy Carter his presidency but it certainly broke the diplomatic relations betwwen the US and Iran. Anyway, the compound wall is one of the best comic shows in Iran with some softcore stuff (Down with the USA!) and lots of pretty hardcore pictures (bomns with Made in USA, Ayatollah Homeini quotes about the Great Satan aka the USA, pics of Statue of Liberty with a skull as its head and so on). That was as good as it got.

We did manage to meet a good comedian as well. While taking subway back to the train station i made a mistake to actually talking to a guy in metro. While we thought we would be nice and talk to him a bit, take pics and so on, he was having none of it. He came along, took us to a teahouse and shops, made sure we got to the right train (although I knew about that process a bit more than he did). It was al very good and we were quite thankful for Mehdi, who barely spoke English. However, his comedy values started showing the next day when he called Taavi around 10 times. And the day after he called about as many times. Well, how do you conversate on the phone with someone who does not speak the language?

So, the train to Esfahan. We had 1st class but it didnt look like that. Basically it was a 6 bed compartment which was narrower than here (not a surprise, they use normal gauge railways). I, of course, liked it very much but others did not seem to appreciate the value of train travel. We did have a good companion though. A guy who went to college in the US and stayed there, for a total of 21 years. He had come back just a few years before because... believe it or not... his wife wanted it. Anyway, he was a very interesting person and could actually give some useful tips about Iran.

Monday 1 Sep
The first class train was not that first class but nevertheless we managed to survive the night quite well arriving in Esfahan in the early morning. Just on another note, this was the last day before Ramazan (thats what they call Ramadan in Iran).

Since the train station happened to be outside the city in semi-desert the first task was to find a taxi to get to the town. And then a big mission – to get a room for some real rest. Overnight buses and trains can get to you by the end.

By this time i was quite good with the taxi drivers. My best tip for all interested parties – tell that you’ve had much better pricies (even if you hadnt) and the best of them all – walk. Usually they’ll walk after you  Anyway, as it turned out the hotel recommended by Lonely Planet had been closed down so we went for the taxu driver’s recommendation. It was slightly away from the main attractions but didnt look bad at first sight. Although the toilet was definitely Iranian.

Taavi and Birgit settled down to organize the rooms while me and Helena went to accomplish the plane ticket mission that had not been completed the day before. The walk to the centre was quite nice. As most towns in Iran, Esfahan had tree-lined streets so despite being almost in desert, the town looked green. For all trivia fans – sidewalks in Iran have those little canals besides them. About a foot wide and a bit deeper than that, carrying water ranging in purity from bad to worse. But it helps about greens and fighting dust.

So, we got to the Iran Air travel office and then the fun started. The first lady checked flights and there was no availability. I didnt believe her (yes, i suspected bad English) and went to the next one. She said that she couldnt or something. Very well, went to the next office and they, i think, said that there was 4 seats but on some obscure airline. Do you sell the tickets? No. Who does? I dont know. As it turned out nobody would sell those tickets and no one knew where the office could be. Such answers created such energy in me that i could make the Lonley Planet fly.

Anyway, help was on hand and some guy directed to another office where we created an emergency plan and just in case moved on to Kish Airlines office for one last check and perhaps some phone calls for yesterday’s friends. The girl in that office was not the greatest help either. In fact i was becoming so annoyed with the fact that everybody offers completely useless help on the street (can you show on the map where is this... – Well... where are we now...?) but once you really need help they’re kinda useless. TO top it all up our friend from Tehran, the one that didnt quite speak english, managed to say once again that „it is ok“ and we just have to go and talk to Mr Ahmadi on the Kish island. This whole saga took 3 hours, thank you very much.

The adventure continued however. Taavi and Birgit had managed to do some good organizing and we had rooms ready. Unfortunately they had took the room with the shower that worked. Ours certainly didnt. Me being a devoted DYI guy was happy to see that i had really needed my Gerber pocket tool and did some plumbing work. No, couldnt get it working. The staff was rather helpful though and we could switch our room with no hassle. They did ask though if we minded the double bed in the new room.

So, time for nap. Unfortunately it was such a good nap that we missed quite a few phone calls from Taavi. However we did manage to wake up when the daily power stop came about and the aircon stopped working. Time for some sightseeing!

So, on i put my cool sleeveless Italia/Diving team shirt and off we went. About 100 meters after we set sail Helena asked if i was sure about my clothing. I think in that moment i was about 1 in 65 million. One without sleeves that is. No, i wasnt sure.

Anyway, finally we got on the way and met up with our companions in a carpet shop. Yes, they had been invited in for the tea. The guy was really nice and talked a lot about his carpets and Iran in general. As it turned out, you dont get your passport until you’ve done your military service. How about that in Estonia?  Of course, he was promoting his carpets a bit too, but not in an aggressive manner. As one guy later put it – you can come to my shop but i know, you’re young and you dont have that much money nor interest to buy souvenirs, but i just like to talk to you!

When we did move on, we were right on the main attraction of Esfahan. The big square. I’m sure it had a name but it is not that important. The square was huge, about 500 m long and perhaps 200+ m wide. Apparently a shah in 1600s had wanted to make Esfahan the capital and so he did with all the applause and so on. On the square that included 2 mosques, supposed to be Iran’s finest, a big gate and a palace. And lots of fountains.

We did go to the big mosque. 1: It was really nig 2: It was really-really nice. In Iran they used copper for many purposes, including colouring so all that blue you see on the pictures, is copper-based paint. And the paint is usually on small ceramic tiles. Yes, all those ornaments are usually made of tiles which are about the same size as you got on the bathroom floor. Later on me and Helena went to the other mosque too. It was a bit smaller but much different. Being a private mosque for shah’s wives it didnt have the usual rectangular inner courtyard but a small walkway led straight under the dome. The dome was built so that sunsihne would come through at certain angles and the dome tiles inside being quite neutral coloured, the dominant colour inside would change as a day passes.

I do have to mention the nice palace too. While Helena totally missed it for the sake of shopping (ah, women) the rest of the crew stopped by. By the way, the price of sightseeing usually ranged from 3000-5000 rials, or up to 6 kroons or so. Iniside they had this nice chamber which is built the way that if you stand in the opposite corners of the riim and talk towards the wall, the construction carreis your voice to the opposite corner. Exciting for kids. And me and Taavi. The palace itself was not that special but the views were magnificent. The buildings in Iran are quite low, perhaps a tradiotion, perhaps smart considering frequent earthquakes, so if you’re on top of a, say, 4 floor building you can already see pretty far. For me an interesting detail was the lack of so usual wall, ceiling and yes, in this case also stairs decorations. The reason being quite simple – during the revolution an angry mob got in and gave their best. Well, we did it in 1905 as well...

Ok, here two couples broke their ways up and due to dodgy cells it remained that way for a while. It turned out that iranian cell phones let you know that sending a sms failed however techinically it doesnt but happens in a few hours. A natural reaction would be to try again. And again. And again. So in a few hours the other person gets a message. And again. And again.

Anyway, me and Helena made up our minds to go and see the river and some nice bridges. On the way we managed to pop by a synagogue (yes, i went to a synagogue the first time in Iran!) and talk to some local Jewish people but the river it was soon. Unlike many „rivers“ in Iranian towns, that are deep, sandy, totally empty (yes, no water) valleys, this was a good river. Wider than any we got over here (or maybe comparable to Pärnu/Narva). And the old bridges were nice too. Apparently the oldest one was around 400 years old and still going strong. To make it even better, the bridges were lit up during the night. Now, add a nice strip of park on both banks of the river and you get a veeeery nice setting.

What wasnt nice, however, was the infamous walk of Jolfa. Now, you might remember Jolfa from earlier on and thats totally correct. You might also remember the shah who made Esfahan the capital. Now, this shah, wanting to make Esfahan nice made a large junk of Jolfa’s Armenian population to relocate to Esfahan. Thath bunch stayed together and named their district not so creatively Jolfa. Supposedly there was to be some nice food places which we quite fancied. The walk however, took quite a while, maybe 45 minutes or so. That is not cool after a day of sightseeing. To spice it up, there was a power outage during this time too  And a girl approached to talk to us (she was 14 and told Helena that she had a boyfriend even though her parents had told her not to mess with boys). To make it really short – no, we didnt find the places we were looking for even though we at least passed one location. Take what you can find.

The conclusion – 4 yr old Lonely Planet can deceive in Iran. And – the signs on the map are not quite accurate. And – the distances on the map differentiate substantially from the reality. Help was as usual close and a guy who turned out to be in local tourist business gave us a ride to a hotel restaurant. His wife was also there so Helena had a privilege to sit next to her in the front seat. She liked it! 

Now, the restaurant was nice, outside on the 4th floor or so. However, waiters didnt speak English nor were that interested. Food wasnt any better than from street vendors (and i am harsh here to street vendors) but much more expensive (although a dinner for 4 was still around 400 kroons!). Interestingly, there was one guy whose sole job was to take a small piece of paper, presumably with fulfilld orders, from a waiter and to print out this Excel-based spreadsheet with the bill. To top it all off, on the way out the selection of floor in the elevator was not that good and we ended up in a basement. But i have to add that despite this rather anti-climatic end it was a real good day. And we saw a girl without a scarf in the hotel. At least i saw. No, it was not Helena, she was behaving.

Tuesday 2 Sep
This was the first day of Ramazan, we think, meaning that all the good fun things to do during the day like eating, puffing a qalyan or drinking tea got the „nicht nicht“ sign.

Basically the plan for the day was to do some sightseeing (i.e. walk to another mosque) and then take a bus to Yazd. The walk to the mosque went through old town and bazaar. Old towns are basically Iranian inner cities, if you know what i mean. They are old, quite dodgy, sometimes a few bits and pieces have fallen off and so on. Therefore youre middle class crowd doesnt really fancy living in them leaving it for the folks who cant afford any better. Bazaar... yes... well, if you think it is just street vendors selling stuff on two sidewalks, in the case of Iran you’re quite far from truth. It is usually quite complicated building or mostly even a complex of buildings with many passageways and sometimes even different levels. On both sides there are small booths but the goodies are also put out on the passageway. Surprisingly, the businessmen are not your Arab-types who would want to shake your hand for hello and then not let you go but drag in instead. They do take no for an answer.

Back to Esfahan. The mosque this time was Jameh Mosque which would mean Friday Mosque. The point about Friday being that this would be the main day of the week for religious activities like Sunday for christians. Unlike the fancy mosques of the day before, this was more down to earth in design but fairly big nevertheless. The oldest parts, I think, were close to 1000 years old. The price of the ticket also included an English-speaking guide. Not bad for about 5 kr!

The main attraction of the day before leaving Ramazan was the shaking minarets. You heard it right. The building itself was a small maouselum for someone but considering i really cant remember who, he probably wasnt that cool. Whoever built his eternal resting place hugely contributed to Esfahan’s tourist business. There were two small minarets on either end of the building. Stone that was used to construct them had not the stablest of consistence and as time passed by (a few hundred years) some of the stone evaporated. Well, not literally but it became sand and just slipped out. Therefore it was possible to shake the minarets which one guy duely did every hour. The best part was that when one minaret was shaken the other one followed in the same rhytm! You can check this out on youtube – shaking minarets Esfahan.

Our next destination was Yazd, another pleasant semi-desert city. Before we got there, we saw the first signs that not everybody quite appreciates Ramazan. There were a few guys doing cigarettes. Also bus and railway station restaurants are open on daytime but thats not cheating for travellers are allowed to eat. Alongside elderly, sick and children. We didnt qualify.

Yazd... The familiar haggling over taxi past, we headed off for the town. This was, besides the Schumacher ride probably, the best taxi ride so far. First of all, as we were in traffic õ, a guy passing buy gave me a handful of pistachhios. While cars were going about 60 km/h. And then a few minutes later when someone was trying a left turn from the rightmost lane (probably) we had a minicrash. What would have warranted an argument and an application subimtted to insurance, resulted in the driver taking a glance to the back of the car and saying something like „blah“. Business as usual.

The town itself looked green and rather nice. It’s main sights, aside form the quite obvious mosques, were a complex big building inside the city and badgirs. Badgir is a towerlike building with slim, long window-like openings. Those windows are designed to catch even the slightest of winds which is then directed downstairs through airchannels. Somewhere are then small pools of water. As air passes over them, it cools down and is then directed to rooms. Those who understood that this is the principle of air conditioning can go and reward themselves with a cookie.

Another thing that one couldnt help but notice in Yazd, was how people looked. There were much more eastern/southern looking people in Yazd. First, the looks of course. More men had beards and their skin was much darker than in Tehran or Tabriz. Also, the clothing style was not so western here. There were a number of men wearing those baggy clothes that are associated with Pakistan or Afghanistan. As it turned out, most of those people were either Baluchis or Pushtus.

Back to Yazd. Us being the stingy type of tourists we set on foot towards „a traditional hotel“. On the way we picked up Ali. Or maybe he picked up us. First he seemed like any other guy we met so far. Maybe the differnce was that his English was really good. Cant tell too much about him though, he was talking to Helena mostly!  Well, it turned out pretty soon that he was offering tours. That was quite convenient as we were looking to see some sights around Yazd anyway. The price was quite reasonable as well, 2000 tomans per person (20 kr). He was nice enough to walk us to the hotel as well which would not have been easy at all by ourselves. The old town of Yazd was the worst of all. Straight streets did not last for more than 200 m and there were quite a few corners! For your information, on the way there, we passed a camel burger joint.

The hotel, the „traditional hotel“. Out of habit we decided to check the rooms beforehand. I went in and came out running. It had air con, decent shower, and a western toilet all for the grand sum of 33000 tomans (350 kr) for two persons. Unfortunately it was not a perfect day and guys playing football next to the hotel finished the game just as i joined it. I finished on the losing side, if youre interested. As far as the hotel was concerned, not only were the rooms nice, it was nice as a whole. The building itself was of rectangular shape which left an inner courtyard with rose bushes and a small pool. So, having tea there was really nice!

The long day of travelling ended in another „traditional hotel’s“ „traditional restaurant“. One for the romantics as the Lonely Planet said but that was not the reason we went there – Ali directed us there. As you might have guessed, on the way to there we popped by at a mosque. We did have some fun with Ali as well. As i mentioned before we found his price quite agreeable but then it turned out that the car cost around 60 dollars. Knowing a bit about going rates we were having none of it. He didnt like our offer of 30 dollars so it was a bit of a stalemate for a while. Cue some phone calls to the driver and we did come down to 42 dollars. The moment after we had agreed Ali said that perhaps we can round it up to 45 dollars. Perhaps we couldnt for half a day of driving. But then it turned out that Ali had told us the wrong price of his guide service. It was not 2000 tomans per person but 20000 tomans. Well, you have to say that this would be not cheap in Estonia either. And he tried to win sympathy by countering my offers asking if i thought that was a fair price. Business, mate. Well, all in all we came to an agreement at 62000 tomans. Which he thought was a good idea to round up to 65. And he looked like we’d just murdered his family.

The hotel itself was hidden off the main street down a small alley. Like ours it had a courtyard with a pool. Unlike ours, it had 3 stray cats too. I hope the 4th one wasnt on the menu. Not too much to talk about the food, the usual kebab stuff anyway, meaning it was good as expected. The funnier part as usual were the people. Well, at least they didnt have an Excelinator on their books (see hotel restaurant in Esfahan) but for example the waiter, who was quite cool, had a t-shirt with the picture of USS Lexington (an American aircraft carrier) with the slogan „Been there, done that“. The guy himself was quite cool, took us up to a badgir and stuff...

Wednesday 3 Sep
Since we had aday trip agreed, this was the earliest wake up of the trip. Around 7. Just in time to have some breakfast too. Some words about breakfast too. It involves: tea, white bread (the thin one, or the but thicker), goat cheese and carrot jam. In all places bar the most expensive ones.

Now, the car we had secured ourselves through Ali was a bit of disappointment to say at least. It was a Kia Pride, we had to fit 4 in the back and the seat was wet. It didnt stop me from falling asleep very soon but very few things can.

The first stop was Kharanaq. While the caravanserai (a place where caravans could stay overnight) was not that exciting, the main attraction was the old mud town of about 1000 years of age. If we talk about construction materials, there would be not so much choice. If you have paid attention so far, you’d probably not even consider wood and there is not too many stones either. Which leaves sand and mud. Sand doesnt fit the profile, so mud it is. Just mud or mud bricks. Kharanaq had a big city/village of those mud/mudbrick houses situated on a slope of a hill. Again, there were even different levels but since someone had fallen through a roof a few years back, i wasnt that interested in roof-walking. Interestingly, people had move out only around 40 years ago.

The best part of this town was a minaret. Yes, a shaking one too. Initially Taavi thought it was too tight to climb it (the stairs are inside the tower). You cant blame him considering his weight... Ali, being the smallest did go up however and i couldnt be worse. Eventually everyone did it. The comedian of this hour turned out to be Helena who chose a wrong way to go down. There was 2 stairs, one without an exit anymore. You can guess which one she chose! And she didnt like the shaking of the minaret too well either...

However, the schedule was tight and upon seeing an aqueduct (those logical types might understand that it makes sense to collect water from the mountains) we moved on. Next destination – Chak Chak. Yes, it sounds cool.

Chak Chak is a worship place, one of the most important ones for that matter, for Zoroastrians. This was the main religion in Persia before islam but now they have a very meagre 150 or 200 thousand followers. I will not go into detail about the religion itself, although it might be of some interest to people who are vaguely interested in eastern philosophies or some new age stuff. Or, i could just mention Zarathrustra. Yes, thats him.

Anyway, the pilgrimage site is on the slope of very steep mountain and quite high too. The centrepiece of whole complex is a cave with a fireplace (very important!) and water dripping from the mountain (chak chak comes from the sound dripping water makes). And some cool interior with some resemblance to Nazis. For real. The eagle thing and all that.

The last part of the tour was Zoroastrian tower of silence. Actually there was 2 towers, right outside of Yazd. Techincally they weren’t quite towers but on a small hill there was something resembling a fortress wall. Zoroastrians used these structures (men and women had different ones) for burials. Since they couldnt bury their dead (would soil ground), or burn them (would soil air) they put their dead on those „towers“. There a priest would sit with the dead body and wait until a vulture came and then it was important to see which eye that vulture picked up first. That told if the person was gonna go to heaven or hell.

Since our next trip was going to be to Kerman/Bam, our next hours were spent searching for tickets. However, since the ticket offices did have lunch time, there was a chance to take the Lonely Planet and wander in the old town, which was apparently one of the biggest and well-preserved in Iran. It also turned out that Lonely Planet was totally worthless in that old town. The map was not precise and street system complex and curvy, so it was impossible to find anything.

It took a bit of time to get the tickets since English skills were not that good in Yazd, but in the end it was no problem. Just before heading for the bus station we did the last bit of sightseeing in Iran visiting the eternal fire of Zoroastrians. It might seem that Zoroastrians, considering the number of believers (around 200000) gets unproportionally lot of attention but it was the main religion before islam. Anyway, in this fire temple (yes, they have a bit of a fire cult going on) they had fire that had been on for about 1500 years. Beat that.

Thursday 4 Sep
As it turned out in Yazd, it made much more sense to go directly to Bam than to Kerman and then on a separate bus to Kerman. So we did. The bad thing was that we were dropped off in Bam around 5 am. Unlike at 59 degrees north in August (maybe, i never get up at 5), in Iran that is nighttime. Nighttime is not that good for sightseeing. Or for doing anything besides sleeping, for that matter. The good thing was, that it was going to be light quite soon.

Most people dont probably know Bam as such but some people might remember the 2003 earthquake in Iran. Well, the epicentre was Bam which as more or less wiped out with most people homeless and 26000 less fortunate ones dead. Almost 5 years later the city looks like mini-Stalingrad. There are ruins everywhere, there are a lot of renovated houses but they seemed to be in minority. There must be thousands of sea containers which seem to serve every purpose that houses usually serve. In short, it doesnt look rosy. The reason we went there was the old town/castle, made of mud. It was on the Unesco world heritage list, still is and was the biggest of its kind. It had been a centre on trade routes and apparently more than 1000 years old.

In the mudtown the renovation had been on for quite some time but as it looked, it would last another 20 years. Of course, nobody seemed to hurt themselves with work either. The site itself was quite impressive with kind of lower town around the hill that housed the Toompea-like fortress. Some houses had been renovated already but mostly one could see how the earthquake had pushed walls over, the remains were in many place on the ground like in 2003.

Besides this site there wasnt exactly much to do in Bam so we were ready to leave at 8 am! Fortunately there was a bus leaving for Kerman soon, a Mercedes this time (it means 2nd class bus) and soon we were rolling in the desert. Back to safety so to speak, as the US Dept of State advised not to go eastwards from Bam (Brits had drawn the line to Kerman, so we were well past it by now).

Kerman, to be fair, was nothing special. It was a desert city albeit quite green like all towns. The sun was soaring hot as one would expect in desert. As usual we managed to do some sightseeing. Like going to a bath museum  We also passed by the local library which had originally been a textile factory. A nice factory indeed. Unfortunately, taking pictures inside was bit of a nicht-nicht.

The biggest disappointment was that we couldnt get into the ice house. Basically, it was used to keep ice back in the day but these days the building had been in use as some sort of kids center. Allegedly, inside, there had been a hanged statue of the last shah, with stars and stripes hat and all that... To miss that was a real shame.

As we tried to figure out a place to eat at (not easy during Ramazan), we met one of the funniest persons in Iran. A former air force officer (had trained in the US in the 70s) picked us up and offered help. He was funny as hell („i have to do dishes otherwise my wife tell me bad things!). Singing cadences (those things said out loud when soldiers are marching), telling stories about his training in the US, about Iran in general, his wife... All in all, funny. After he had driven us to the hotel restaurant he actually asked if we allowed him to leave...

Nothing much to tell about the restaurant besides the fact that waiters were even less interested in us than in the previous hotel restaurant. The hotel (manager was a woman, by the way) was newly renovated though and looked very nice. It also had western toilets! 

Rest of the day we just wandered around, killing time before the Shiraz bus. Funnily enough, when we got a cab to the bus station (an unofficial one), upon passing the money to the driver he handed me a red panama hat and said „merry christmas“.

Friday 5 Sep
This morning we arrived in Shiraz. This was supposed to be a longer stop, until Sunday. It is cool to travel overnight to avoid losing time but after some point this gets really tiring. Especially if you factor in the heat and Ramazan as well. So, we had decided by this point that Mashhad would be left for another time. Especially considering that the main attraction there was a mosque.

Now, the morning was well spent on looking for a hotel. It seemed that prices had increased somewhat since the LP was published. Fortunately, all the hotels were really close, making it easy to check them all out. In the end we went for an apartment-style hotel. A two-room+kitchen type room cost 90 dollars per night which didnt seem bad at all.

Shiraz

By the time we arrived in Shiraz, i was the jedi knight of haggling. Almost. Or perhaps it was the fact that we were quoted so outrageous prices that a 70% decrease still gave a good income.

Anyway, to town and since w ehad spent a couple of nights in buses, the first destination was a hotel. Again, the haggling part. It seemed that the LP prices were not so current anymore so we did check out 5 our so hotels before deciding. In the end we went for an apartment type room (2 bedrooms and kitchen!) for 90 dollars per night. Since the original prices was 180 and decent double rooms were at least 50 dollars, this was a good deal.

Showers and stuff did feel nice, as well as the nap. Others were a bit more sleepier than me and after some time I felt i needed to explore the city and get some fruits. So I did. For some reason others got a little bit worried when they didnt find me in the hotel. Even 2 plastic bags full of fruits (for a total of 70 kr).

We managed for some mandatory sightseeing too. Shiraz itself is mostly used as a hub for Persepolis and Pasargadae, but it is a nice city by itself. It would be much nicer however, if the Shiraz wine was still legit, which is not of course.

There was a nice castle which doubled up as a prison during the shah time, old town, lots of mosques... What was cool was that we met this guy who was obviously a bit more of a bad boy than Leo Di Caprio. First of all, he looked a bit hip with hai rin ponytail and so on. He also was very openly critical of Iran as such. I suppose it is not that difficult if you have spent time in prison and enjoyed leashes for being in a same apartment with a girl you’re not married to. Anyway, he took us first to a mosque/religious college. In addition to nice views from the roof (remember, all buildings are low) it was interesting to find out that all the students come from Afghanistan. Also, the comparison between the USSR and Iran came to mind again when he accused mullahs in all kinds of bad and worse things.

This guy also took us to a shrine. In the process h ehad a cigarette in front of it. Remember, it was ramadan. In Iran people go to shrines to be good muslims. Thats as well as i got it. Inside there were mirrored ceilings and a relic which seemed an object of worship. Our guide then presentedu s with small stones which somehow relate to praying and those small hings you count your prayers with. He got them from a shelf there...

In the end it was time to part ways and we got a final offer. The next day we could go to the guys place and have wine and perhaps smoke something...

In the end we aimed to find a qalyan place and it seemed a good idea to look for around next to the gate of Quran. Shiraz is situated in a valley (there’s even a river but it’s as dry as dry ice) meaning there are hills around it. Also, as the tradition went on the border of the city there used to be a gate on top of which a copy of Quran was stored. That way a traveller going in or out of the city passed uner a Quran. So, on the slope of the hill there was the gate of Quran. The original on ehad been demolished t omake way for a road in 1920’s or so but local people wouldnt stand that heresy and built a new one. Now, the additional info was that there was lot of teahouses. Indeed, it was so and the time being Friday night it was totally full of people spending their weekend. As usual, many of them fancied talking to us. Someone was so eager to meet and talk about other countries that he came over and said Heil Hitler.

The views on top of a hill were breathtaking even though somewhat shadowed by a new hotel being built. The tea was nice as usual and qalyan good as well. Unfortunately we learned that the price list can be different for foreigners...

Saturday
The main plan of the day was to visit Persepolis and Pasargadae. If you missed your ancient history classes, those were two big Persian cities back in the 5th and 4th century BC. Persia was a bit of the USA of that time then, if you know what i mean.

Unfortunately the word on the street was that one needed around 8 hours for the trip but we exited the hotel at 10.30... Cue some argument with the first taxi driver and me being angry that the taxi driver didnt want to earn money but said that there was not enough time. We arrived at compromise that we would take sights one by one and see how it went. And the daily rent was 40 dollars, i believe. Or maybe even 35.

We arrived in Perspolis at more or less midday. Meaning sunshine. Meaning at least 2 of us were red later on. Clue 1. It wasnt me. Clue 2. It wasnt Helena either. Anyway, Persepolis was well impressive. An ancient city that was only found less than 100 years ago. It was used as a complex for (new year) celebrations until Alexander/Iskander destroyed it. Basically there was ruins of palaces, many palaces – mostly columns and gates but also some stairs with very complicated stone carvings. Most importantly – it was huge!! By the way, when tehy did their complicated stone gates and so on, the blocks were lifted on top of each other and then they were carved out as necessary. Bet you didnt know that!

The last shah had intended to use the grandeur of Persepolis for inciting some nationalist feelings in the early 70s and decided to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the Persian empire there. For that purpose a huge tent town was built. And i dont mean those tents you use for camping but huge, steel-framed, marble-floored tents with bathrooms. Food was flown in from Paris and.. you get the picture. And probably the price as well. All athe time of economic distress. His opponents used it against him and perhaps he never recovered from this PR disaster. Ironic that the greatest symbol of empire became the beginning of the end (at least the end of monarchy).

Next up was Pasargadae. On the road we stopped at some other place as well but it had merely some nice tombstones. Pasagadae was quite different from Persepolis. While the former was a complex of buildings, the latter was more like some stuff quite randomly out on the fields. Nevertheless there were some impressive structures, notably the tomb of Cyrus the Great. Not related to Cyrus the Virus of hollywood.

On the way beck to Shiraz we pulled over at Naqsh-e Rustam. Again, it was tombs, but very impressive ones. Basically there was a vertical wall, i’d say at least 50 meters maybe even more high and somewhere in the middle there were huge carvings around the tombs. Yes, tombs were in the caves quite high up, like swallow nests.

Back in town, after some rest we wanted to have a go at finding a good local restaurant. Once again we found out that 1) LP maps are not that great 2) things change fast 3) locals are not that knowledgable however they are helpful. In the end some guys on the street tried to take ust o the chosen place, which as you can guess by now we didnt find and then took ust o another place. The guy who spoke more English sat with us whole dinner refusing to take anything. Unlike many locals though he didnt become irritatingly friendly. Maybe it was because he was good at English and it was possible to have a normal conversation. In the end he also took us to a waterpipe joint (getting a bit lost in the process despite me trying to point out that on the map). The place itself was well dodgy. If you see a crowd like that in an European city you wouldnt go anywhere near it. No problems there though!


Sunday
This was to be our last day in Shiraz, mainly to be used for sightseeing purposes. It was actually more of a rest day with some shopping, internet hour and so on. We did go to some places that the bad boy hadnt shown us but to be fair there wasnt anything so special about mosques any more. They were nice and stuff but there are limits, ok? Anyway, to the nicest of all we couldnt get it in for we were not muslims... We did get a peek into another shrine. Cue some uncomfortable moments for me and Taavi as the locals walked out backwards. It took us a few minutes to make a plan. You see, going backwards would have impied we were muslims which we quite clearly werent. Then again we didnt want to risk the wrath of Allah by blatantly walking out. What did we do? Walk kinda slowly, semi-sideways 

After some tasty evening hamburgers (the locals seemed to chea with that ramadan thing quite a lot) it was time for the airport and our final destination . Kish Island. Airport itself was ok, the problem was the flight got delayed. For 1.5 hours. And then a bit more. All in all, we didnt worry cause w ehad arranged a hotel with a pickup service.

Well, as the flight was so delayed, once we arrived in Kish we found no pick up. The taxi ride being around 30 kr it wasnt that much of a problem but a principle. Oh, did i mention that we were all sweating outside in just about 2 minutes? No? Good, we were. It was that warm and humid.

Monday
Kish Island... It is a small islandi n the middle of the Persian Gulf with 2 purposes: tax-free/beach heaven for iranians, stopover for foreign labor of United Arab Emirates (Kish island entrance is visa free and in UAE foreigners can stay for max 90 days...).

Our first worry in the morning was to get the plane tickets back. As you can imagine by now it was bit of a hassle. W ehad to go to a couple of different places but miraculously we got the tickets. No sign of Mr Ahmadi though (see Tehran chapter)! Unfortunately we couldnt get tickets onwards from Tehran to Tabriz and Yerevan but we were sure we could find a bus, insh’Allah (if Allah wishes so)!

Time for other stuff too. By the way, all the travel offices were in a big mall, and there was more than one of those in Kish. Basically, all kindsof shops, with electronics and clothes being prevalent. Funnily, quite a few (at least sports shops) had blatantly fake merchandise. You know, 250 kr puma shoes and so on. Not quite fascinating for me, i am not the no 1 shopper in the world but very cool, literally. Daytime was extremely hot and aircon worked just fine in the malls.

Next up was the search for the holy grail – a new hotel room. Our old one was cheap but had 2 major problems – a bit far out, no aircon. Pay attention to the latter! This was my favorite part of the day – seeing hotel rooms and haggling. Can we have a discount? But there is 4 of us. But the neighboring hotel offered us a better rate... It turned out now, that in Kish the most important currency was dirham from the UAE. In the beginning we didnt even notice that but in most places they actually quoted the price in dirhams first. Or perhaps it was the fact that here people thought we were Russians (there’s a whole lot of them in UAE and for example our flight crew had been from Ukraine).

Our hotel was very nice – seaview, cable tv with western films... Just the balcony door wouldnt open. It turned out later that it was on purpose to avoid the cockroach problem. Dont ask.

Anyway, after some siesta it was beach time. Unfortunately things had changed since 2004 and there was no more foreigner beach. Not a big deal for me personally, i went swimming anyway. The water was warmer than soup they serve in few places in Tallinn. Then again for Helena swimming was strictly illegal (we were on a regular beachline)... I dont have to mention wearing bikinis, do i?

For sightseeing purposes there is really nothing on Kish. For entertainent... well, no night clubs either but thats a no brainer, right? Therefore we just chilled in the evening, had some dinner, watched a movie.

Tuesday
The beach day. And some shopping in the morning too. What can you tell about being on the beach? You swim, you sunbath, you play volleyball with locals. Male only. As for female beach... (this was told by Helena) There was a security check, all cameras, even phones with cameras were taken away. Strictly no photographing. But what happened there... (I would pay a reasonable amount of money to have seen that) – small bikinis, girls smoking... A whole different ball game. But then again, female only.

Before heading back to the airport w ehad a small picnic at a Greek ship. A few decades ago a Greek ship ran aground near Kish. Now it’s a tourist attraction: No, i dont knowwhy. But the setting was nice and it could have been a nice sunset if there had been no clouds. Word of advice too. If you want t ostand out on a foreign island, stick your head in a hole (see pictures).

But soon we were in Tehran. Fortunately we landed in the old airport, located pretty much in the city meaning that the bus terminal was about 5 kms away. Imagine the horror when the initial taxi price was 4000 tomans (40 kr), to be lowered to 2000. I was having none of it and walked. I think they got scared of me. In the end i got my deal – 1000 tomans. Easy. Cherry on the cakes was that there was a bus going to Tabriz right there. Even better – as usual we were given the front seats. IT seems a bit unfair to the locals who might have had tickets for those seats but you cant refuse hospitality, can you?

However... The trip was as usual. The bus got started around 30 minutes late. Then it stopped at quite random places for a long time (a village, 30 minutes, at 6 am??) so i n the end the 8 hour trip was more like 10 hours. However, scenery was nice, you cant argue.

In Tabriz it was easy plan. 45 mins for shopping, then get a taxi to the border. It worked out pretty well – me getting a waterpipe, Helena getting some help from tourist information and we got a ride of 200 kms for 35 dollars. Not that cheap, but remember that when we arrived we were offered 60 km for 40 dollars.

Now we are a bit repeating ourselves but the road back along the border river, the border... Bureacracy on the Armenian side, run by Russians... Iran was much better 

And then... after finally being back in Armenia we made one of the big mistakes of the trip. We accepted the first taxi offer. The guy seemed totally cool with his old Lada, took us straight to a beer shop and was cool to talk to. This time, us being less sleepy, there was more time to enjoy the scenery of the southern Caucasus range as well. Unfortunatley soon alarm bells were ringing out loud. We stopped at a food joint and it seemed to be driver’s friends. All the usual, expensive and not so good food, extra prices for bread and salad and in addition –the driver said he couldnt continue cause his lights had become bad. Most annoyingly he promised the new driver would be there in 15 minutes. That he repeated many a time. 15 minutes turned out to be about hour and 45 minutes. Then he wanted to get all the money and he would have given it to the other driver. We were having none of it. When the new driver shoed up, he looked like a serial killer and didnt speak that much Russian even. Shit. In the end it worked out kinda fine excpet the fact that the most reasonable priced hotel in Yerevan was 40000 dinars or whatever htey called it (90 euros more or less) for rooms that saw renovation last time when my sister even didnt go to school. Or earlier. FYI, she started school in 1988. Then again, the driver’s offer for 6000 dinar/15 euro rooms didnt seem that goodi n hindsight either. Basically the issue is that there is a lot of foreign Armenians coming to Yerevan in the summer and they hike up prices making Yerevan the most expensive city in Caucasus.

Thursday
Alrighty. The last day of the trip. I was kinda excited to see the town, being a bit of a sightseeing freak. It wasnt going to be disappointing.

Yerevan is quite Soviet style city, however it is situated in a valley and mountain slopes which add quite a lot of scenery. Plus – there is mount Ararat (you know, Bible, Noah) which is huuuuuuge, looking over the city.

Me and Helena started out a bit earlier with an aim to go to the genocide museum. If you dont know this, its a big deal for Armenia. A large part of Armenian population used to live in what was then and is now Turkey. In the early 20th century the Turkish government set out to harrass Christians. As WWI broke out, the chance was there for the final solution (ironically, Turkish military was trained by Germans). In 1915, starting on April 24 (genocide remembrance day now not only in Armenia but f.e. in California and some other places) Armenians were relocated from their homes, a lot of them straight executed, some marched to deserts to die and so on. 1,5 million perished (Armeenian version, Turks claim 300,000). The Armenian diaspora in France, the US and son was teh direct result of this. Of 2-3 million Armenians living in Turkey, I think about 10% remained after WWI. To this day Turkey refuse to acknowledge this as genocide and ther is no relations between Armenia and Turkey. Even the border is totally closed. This event also means that unfortunately Armenians think Russians are their friends.

Anyway, on the way to the genocide memoraial we managed to get lost, see the huge Ararat fotball stadium (Estonia will be playing there in March) and then we were there. Memorial was what you think a place like that would be – impressive. The site was perfect too – on top ofa hill in the city. Interestingly foreign dignitaries visiting the museum had planted trees for remembrance. Not surprisingly there were 3 countries most represented – Russia, France, the US. It was nice to see all the Baltic states, as well as Finland having contributed. From Sweden... the delegation of swedish left party had planted one...

Oh, in the museum, which was very sad (proportionally more Armenians were killed and ina shorter span of time than Holocaust) and moving. They had also put on display different documents from foreign countries that recognize either genocide ori ts remembrance day. On the most important and visible place, one with the signature of Mr Governator himself (April 24 is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in Kalifoh-nia).

Next up – Armenian brandy factory/museum! Armenia is, especially inthe former USSR, known as a cognac country (French couldnt really affect soviet laws, however Armenian brandy is the only one that has been allowed to be named cognac... albeit in 1906 or something). Tickets seemed a bit pricy at 4000 dinars but we got to taste 3 different brandies, including one 20 year old. Yummy. I almost felt like taking leftovers with me. We got a tour too in the factory but besides big barrels i dont rememberthat much. Well, they had personal barrels for foreign VIP-s... Putin, Putin’s wife, Yeltsin... Also, for a certain Mr Rüütel! Funnily, whereas other people had pictures of only themselves signing the barrel (and therefore only their signatures too), on the „Estonian barrel“ there was also a signature of Mrs Rüütel (sorry, all foreign readers, you’re not supposed to get this anyway)...

Oh, as for the question why Armenia is a brandy country and their neighbors Georgia very much a wine country, the answer is simple. Just when brandy production got started in Armenia, one facility was setu p in Georgia as well. Then there was some bad years for Georgian grapes and the Georgian one went down and Georgia remained famous for wines... I had thought that there was something more deep but it turned out to be a coincidence...

Ah well, military musem next. Museum itself wasnt maybe of that much interest but it was located on top of another hill with well impressive victory statue. The museum itself had been mostly devoted to WWII (700000 Armenians fought there) but most of it had been turned into Karabakh war museum. In 1988-1994 there was a quite bloody warbetween Armenia-Azerbaijan and both sides take it very seriously. Just check their repsective foreign ministry websites. Unfortunately it was only in Armenian. WWII Stuff? It had been removed to basement but we got a peek. For such a small nation it was impressive that Armenia had 3 marshals in the Soviet Army + 1 admiral (where’s the sea???). Plus – if you’ve ever heard of Mig airplanes (as for fighters, russians have to main lines – Mig and Su), the constructor who started them, Mr Mikoyan, he was Armenian.

After a nice walk down from the hill it was again relaxing times. Yerevan is Caucasian Paris if we’re talking aout street cafes and we took fll advantage of that. Plus a nice feast as well with many a wine consumed! It seemed a very good idea to visit some more places after that and we did... Even went to a Thursday night disco  Things to remember – you have to pay service fee. When i got the first round, there was a girl on the same side of bar as me who took order from the other side of the bar (the guy was like 2 m from me). Then the guy gave drinks to the girl who gave them to me. Then she wrote a check, i payed and she wanted a fee for service. It was difficult to comprehend what kind of service exactly and to save me from a longer argument i gave her 100 dinars (3-4 kr) – i had bought 4 beers only, you see. The next time she wrote on the bill – service: 500 dinars. F****r.

Anyway, and then it was time to finish off the trip and go to the airport. It felt quite good by now and we improved the situation a bit more. There was to be a final minor issue though. I had left my Gerber (kinda like Leatherman) multitool in the pocket and that was deemed very dangerous by security. I argued a bit and then agreed to take it somewhere. I dont remember where i had to take it but i put it back in my pocket and went to the plane. Anyone who can repeat the feat (taking a 10 cm blade knife onboard of a plane in Europe/North America) will get a drink on me.

And then... it was Riga! 