TRIP TO IRAN OCTOBER 2009

DECEMBER 2009

Whenever we told persons we intended to go to Iran, almost all of them asked, "What on earth would you go there for?" or some variant of this. With me at least it all began many, many years ago, when I was about twelve years old and read Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, in which there is a biography of Alexander the Great and an account of how he burned Persepolis after defeating the armies of Darius. Of course it never occurred to me that I would ever get to really see Persepolis, just as it never occurred to me that I would see any of the other places I read about and was fascinated by. (My great realistic ambition at that time was to one day go to Chicago!) To be sure we had seriously discussed a trip to Syria and perhaps to Jordan; I had even gone so far as to check out the timeshares in Syria---there are only about three---and the availability of an automatic-shift rental car from Hertz, and it was obviously seriously on our mind. How, then, did Iran come up? Well, in the course of our investigating tours to Syria/Jordan, Anna's cousin's daughter, who lives in Vienna, had enrolled us on the e-mailing list of several travel agencies. Periodically they sent us notices of their offerings, most of which I ignored, as they were all written in German, of which I understand absolutely nothing. Just why I looked through one that arrived in late winter will remain forever a mystery; but I did and chanced to see that they offered a trip to Iran, at a time convenient for me to go, going to the places I wanted to go to (plus a great many more I knew nothing about), and at a quite reasonable price. So I sent them an e-mail and received a reply in English with a description of the tour in English. I spoke to Anna about it and she said she would be interested in going, so I wrote back to the agency and told them we would be in Vienna in June and would come into their offices---both Anna and I were quite familiar with their location---and could we make arrangements then. They replied that it would be fine and in mid-June we went in and made the arrangements. There is a bit more to the story, and if you are interested you may read the posted blog before this one for the details.

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We decided to travel with our Hungarian passports, rather than our US passports. We were not trying to fool the Iranians, for they knew we were also US citizens; moreover, the only restriction upon persons traveling on a US passport as against all others is that US citizens must travel in a tour group (which we were doing anyway), whereas there is no such requirement for other nationals. Our reason was to avoid raised eyebrows and possible interrogation when we entered the US on our US passports, which is compulsory for US citizens. To our great surprise we were given the visa in a half-hour, along with maps and descriptive literature.

We flew on Iran Air from Vienna, about 4-3/4 hours. Although we had a long wait until they opened the immigration booth for non-Iranians, we were allowed to go through customs without inspection and without having to go through the X-ray machine. (We were conducted by our guide, who was permitted to meet us in the baggage area after we cleared immigration). We were loaded into our bus, a large Volvo (although we were only eight!) and driven into the city of Tehran. It was about 8.30 Saturday evening. The highways, we saw, were very good, if you think of the Whitestone Expressway or the Van Wyck as being good; unfortunately, they were just as crowded. This, we were to discover, was to be true of all highways everywhere in Iran: quite good, but very, very crowded. All highway signs (and, astonishingly, street signs as well) are in English in addition to the local language. Tehran is a city of about twice the size of NYC in population, and it seemed like all of them were out and about whenever we were. We arrived at our hotel at the north end of the city, which is the best end of town; the quality of the city improves the further north you go. In quality it ranked with a typical 4-star hotel in the US, but geared primarily toward businesspersons.

The next day, Sunday, and also on Monday, we went to museums, ending up at the vault of the National Bank, which contains the Royal Treasury. We also visited some palaces of the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and his father, usually called Rezashah. (In the Islamic faith it is customary to name the eldest son Mohammed, which is why the last Shah is not a "Junior"). Tuesday morning we left Tehran, having seen relatively little of it; but then, Tehran is not that much of a tourist destination for most tourists, since it does not house any of the great antiquities. It did not become the capital until about the time of US independence, and at the time it was a quite insignificant town. I could get out the itinerary and recite the merits of each of the places we visited----to the extent that I remember them. But I think you would not find such an account especially interesting. So instead I shall relate some general impressions and some impressions of particular places.

First of all, the place is much cleaner and more orderly than you would expect it to be. As an example, in Tehran I saw a man actually cleaning public telephone booths, something I had never seen in my life anywhere else; and at the airport I saw them cleaning the handrail of the escalators abd the vents of the air-conditioning system. People are extremely polite and friendly and remarkably patient, too, for they never complained about being asked to screech to a halt so we could cross the street. From what we saw public transport was frequent and the buses seemed in good condition; we never used public transport ourselves, however. We were regularly approached by persons asking where we were from and expressing surprise and pleasure that we were from USA, for (as you might imagine) few Americans travel to Iran, and my impression from things said to me is that most Iranians do not blame them for not coming. The hotels ranged from very good Holiday Inn types to the quite luxurious, and in all of them you were provided with a complete set of toiletries and slippers. The food was international cuisine. There was no alcoholic beverages, but you could drink alcohol-free beer, something we knew very well here in Hungary, since it is forbidden to drink at all and drive here. Except in the more remote and small towns you will find persons who speak English, especially among the university-age set and professionals.

Distances in Iran can be considerable by European standards---here 200 miles is a great distance. However, conveniences are not hard to find, but if you wish to use the toilet it is best to go to a mosque, since you can be sure of a higher level of cleanliness. The landscape is a mixture of desert and semi-arid land for the most part, with a goodly number of mountains. Archaeological sites abound. Many of them consist of bass reliefs carved into rock and commemorate notable victories over foreign foes or homage being paid by subject princes.

The most remarkable cities are Shiraz, Yazd, Kharmanshah, Eshfahan, and Qom. The latter is the Shia Vatican, which is to say that it is a religious center and therefore likely to be crowded most of the time. The others were either at one time or other capital of the country or major cultural cneters. Persepolis is sort of near Shiraz. I say "sort of" because it is actually about 55 miles distant and there is no reliable way to go there by public transport other than by taxi. We of course went on our tour bus, but we learned that a taxi will take you there and back and wait for you for two hours while you tour the site for about 20,000 rials. I could hardly believe my ears and asked again to make sure I heard correctly; 20,000 rials is, after all, all of $2!

Persepolis is every bit what you imagine. At least what remains of it. Given that what remains is quite extensive in area, two hours is barely enough time to do it if you also wish to inspect the bass-reliefs on the cliffside overlooking the city. I bought a DVD (in English) which shows a re-creation of what it must have looked like in the time of Darius the Great or Ataxerxes, before the coming of Alexander.

Shiraz has a bridge we walked across that was already open to traffic at the time William the Conqueror was mulling over snatching the throne of England from Harold. It also has beautiful gardens and parks, which is something found throughout Iran. Eshfahan has a huge square flanked by mosques and palaces, and adorned with fountains and gardens, with shaded arcades.

To sum up: It was one of the very best trips we ever took, and we would recommend it to anyone with even a slight interest in visiting that part of the world.