True Iranian hospitality

It is not very easy to give an objective vision of Iran, one of the oldest countries in the world. From the first glance it appears as a land with lots of contradictions. The country have been already for 30 years governed by strict Islamic regime and all Iranians we were talking to, cursed this regime and Iranian leaders under the ground. Yet, the people, living under strict rules, constant fear of the (moral) police, and no hope for better future, come out to be one of the most hospitable, friendly and helpful personalities, who we had great luck to experience on our journey.

Iran is not the most popular destination for mass tourism, thus any independent backpacker is a miracle for local people. When walking on the streets of Tabriz, many people with better English stopped us for a short conversation or simply welcomed us, asking if they can help us with something or just wished us nice staying in Iran. The ones whose English was not that good, greeted us with smiley "Salaam" or if they really wanted to caught our attention and say something in English, no matter what, then "I'm fine, thank you !" seamed the most suitable phrase for them to say.

Bunch of english students, who found common language with us.















The picture of Iranian streets is not THAT colorful...















A shopkeeper who was so pleased to have us as costumers

Bazaars in Iran are something remarkable. They hold thousand times more spirit in them than any of the sight seeings. Tabriz bazaar, being one of the oldest bazaars in middle-east, consists of 5 km2 of arched corridors with little shops on each side. All this atmosphere, smells of different spices and voices of people bargling, market workers with either empty or overloaded carriages making the way trough the people yelling "jalla, jalla !" ("make way !"), shifted us few centuries back in time.

















































































































Bread factory. Iran has different kinds of bread, this one was with little rocks in it that were removed after taking it out from the oven, leaving an interesting texture into the bread.
Queue waiting for the fresh bread.

Iranians are also very modest some of the times. For example, when we went to a cafe and asked whether they have tea, we were honestly answered : "yes, we have, but it's not good..."

We had already spent two nights in one musaferkhane (guesthouse), paying extra for shower, like in every guesthouse in Iran, so we decided to give up the room, go with our backpacks to Kandovan, Iranian Kappadokya, and see what will happen there.

Very nice things started to happen !

On our way to Kandovan, we got to know Amir and Sultan. Sultan was a construction worker and Amir was his direct boss. It was Friday - free day in Iran and so they decided to spend it somewhere out. As they got to know we are going to Kandovan, they joined with us. After little time we were all three invited to Amir's house in Tabriz to stay there as long as we wish. They also payed everything for us and did not accept any money offer from us.

As the "where we gonna sleep tonight"- question had been solved so early in the daytime, we could fully enjoy Kandovan, which is actually much more concentrate and lively than Kappadokya in Turkey.

Great days are always the greatest - Kadri got a present from two Teheranian girls who we got to know there. Guess what is the most appropriate present in Iran from one women to another....?!

...a scarf !

Later on we were welcomed by Amir's parents, lots of fruits (as Amir's oncle said: "One apple a day, keeps doctor away!") and delicious warm dinner. After 2 nights at Amir's place, Xavier decided to move on and catch his adventures near Azerbaijan border and because conditions were so perfect, Branko decided to catch little cold and fall sick for a little while. Amir moved us to his secret flat, where we could heal and gain back our full power.

Amir took us also to jewelery factory, where his relatives were working. This is how the beginning of all those necklaces, bracelets and rings look like, that Iranian women are ought to wear under their black chadors, unfortunately.

Back to Iran stories..

Crossing the Turkish/Iran border was quite easy, but the preparations were necessary.















In between the countries....
















On the other side of the border, money-mosquitoes were already waiting for us in order to give the worst exchange rate as possible. Fortunately there were so many of them and the competition between them allowed us to change first 5 euros more or less farely. And the most ironical was that our illegal money exchange deal took place in official bank office in front of the eyes of the bank worker.















We got a lift to Maku by a iranian, who works in Turkey, so he more or less knew what hh-ing means. Later on we realized that hh-ing does not really work in Iran, because most people that stop for you are taxis drivers, who consider tourists as cash machines.















Wandering on the streets of Maku were totally different from wandering on streets of any of the Turkish city. People stared at as as we were aliens. No smiles, few shy greetings and mostly only replies to our greetings. But then again, it was mostly only a kurdish city somewhere on the corner of Iran and as we found out later - very different from the rest of Iran.

It was already getting dark, so we got a hotel room on the main street of Maku. No shower, awfully looking and smelling toilet and a room with three beds and cealing covered with a cloth, where was possible to see - in the case of a good imagination - a shape of a hand under the cealing..... Like in the horror movie " Hostel ". The shift from Turkish environment to Iranian environment was so strong, that we were actually still in Tureky in our minds.






















Next day after changing money in the bank, we immediately became millionaires.






















And decided to move on to Tabriz.
When arriving to the bus station, we were suddenly under the attack of bus-mosquitoes. They are some sort of middle-men for bus companies, but give you not official but higher price.
We broke through from the mosquite swarm and headed to the ticket office. The bus to Tabriz costed 1500 tomans (1 euro). As typical tourists in a new country, we were thinking that everybody wants to cheat us, so we tried to get the price even more cheaper. Suddenly the middle-man of this company came into the room. He looked like a mafia boss, with leather jacket and big moustache. With him also the price went up, 2000 tomans now. After our protest and will to pay 1500 tomans for the ticket, he said to us arrogantly "no, thank you! Good bye!" and insisted us to leave. The official ticket seller did not even raise his eyes from his documents.

Illegal money exchange in the bank and illegal bus ticket in the bus company office - that was how Iran seamed to us in the first day.

After little waiting, when the middle-man had left, the price went back to 1500 tomans. So we bought the tickets and were happy to arrive to Tabriz soon - to real Iran.

Our bus just 5 min before departure time :-)

India UPDATE

After two days in india, Kadri already experienced what the combination of tropical sun and spicy food can do to the fragile northern body and Branko almost got robbed by monkeys.

We found a little more relaxed environment in Nepal and although being cheated a lot in western Nepal, we are slowly slowely adapting to this crazy part of the World with such a beautiful nature.

What on Earth is this !

We wanted to keep this blog chronological and thus we should now write about our adventures in Iran, but the strong emotions that stroke us when arriving to India are too powerful that need to get out right away.

We are already more than 24 hours on the soil of India.

First when rejoining with our luggage in Delhi airport, it seamed that the upper cover zipper of Kadri's bag was so tempting for some airport worker, that he just had to open it and when he already open it, then he was not able to resist taking away all the stuff that were in there. Unfortunately also Kadri's mobile was in there....

So here's the announcement - Kadri does not have neither phone, nor number anymore and is thinking of having no phone at all.........at least not in near future.

DEHLI EXPERIENCE

ok, we expected that Delhi is a chaos, but when coming off from the bus in the main bus station, we found ourselves paralyzed. The environment around us was terrifying. We were tired and hungry, but did not know what to eat. Everything seamed to be so dirty and a potential "starter". But Branko consoled us and said: "no matter what we will eat, diarrhea is guaranteed anyway " So we took a deep breath and bought some food that looked like dog meat mixed with cat shit....
It was not that bad actually.

TOILET EXPERIENCE

Branko found courage to use the toilet in the bus station. It was a small room full of bare-foot men standing in the shit and pee. It was not clear where to pee, but when seeing all others peeing against the wall, he tried to do the same. Peeing in India is a collective work like taking money in ATM in Iran - all people are watching how exactly are you doing it and helping when necessary.

BUS EXPERIENCE

Next 8 hours we spent in the bus to Rishikesh (230 km).
The bus was probably as old as independent India, so every pump on the road made people inside the bus jump. We had to take care that we would not jump out of our seats. This constant jumping made several people on the bus vomit out of the window, so we had to take care that the window next to us was closed at that time when someone in front of us was vomiting.

It seams that blowing the horn of vehicles is like a drug to each driver, the are enjoying this so much, and when in Iran it was just pip-pip-pip, then in India it is 1 min constant piiiiiiiiip and the ultimate goal is to start with it just next to the open window of tourists...

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Wow, and what we saw behind the bus window during this 8 hours, was something extreme for both of us.

India is a big ecological catastrophe!
There are so many people who all need and take so many resources from nature and give back only rubbish. It is possible to recognize some remnants of beautiful old English buildings, but they are all left into the hands of time and local people. The area from Delhi to Rishikesh seamed like a big gypsy village.

We were just lacking words....

Eventually we arrived to Rishikesh. It was a big shift from dirty road trip into the clean hotel room with shower and lizards.

We have found 2 good things in India so far -
1) everything is so cheap, much cheaper than in Iran
2) rickshaw drivers and not so offensive and intrusive as in Iran

We still decided to give India a chance to improve it's image in our heads over some time !