At the end the Visa that worried so much me was not a problem at all. All thanks to Mousavi. We met Mousavi and Rita in Istanbul, while we were waiting for our second flight. They set in front of us and she was saying that she couldn’t stand any longer without a cigarette. She must have seen the kindness in me when I told her there’s a terrace where you can smoke. When she was back she started to talk to us. She’s from Milan, celebrating her 70th birthday in Tehran in a couple of days. He is Turkish born in Iran, has lived the last 25-30 years in Italy. She’s a former manager of a company working for hospitals (she knows all hospitals in Italy), widowed too young, has been living with a cat and Mousavi for the last 14 years. He trades in carpets and has a natural instinct for business.
We talked a bit of everything but understood little because they like to talk at the same time (ahah). They were really funny and nice, lovely people (after 5 years I still have nice memories of them, I hope they are good). Mousavi says that Iran is like Italy in the 70s, the country that made rich the Agnelli and Berlusconi families. He would like his son to move to Iran, to make the money that people with his initiative can make, but he’s not eager to. The daughter moved to Tehran after studying in Italy, and she now has a sweet baby girl that drives grandparents crazy. He spends various months in Iran. Basically his life is divided between the two countries. He would like to move to Iran, but he went crazy for this blonde lady 20 years older than him and can’t stay away from her for too long.
Mousavi took us under his wings and when we arrived in Tehran granted for us. They asked for no insurance, no hotel booking or return ticket. There were other people requesting a visa and nobody had any problem. Plus Rosa and partner took us to our hotel on a taxi. It was a big time saving: with public transportation we would have spent little money, but it would have taken us a long time. They didn’t even want us to pay our share of the taxi fee, and we didn’t insist.
When we arrived at the airport in Tehran the air was full of flowers scent. When someone goes to Mecca on pilgrimage, when they are back they find the whole family welcoming them at the airport, at 4 in the afternoon or in the morning; everyone with flowers. It was a nice party and a nice sight.
At 7 am we were at the hotel; it took us some time to get there because the airport is 32km from the town centre. I had read somewhere that they drive like crazy, and we immediately had a confirmation of it: they do the turns at all speed, change line without looking at other cars, people cross the road in plain night with cars running fast.
At the hotel they offered the room in advance without waiting 2pm for the check-in, for half the rate of the room; and we accepted. To save money we took the room with shared bathroom. 31USD + 15 for the early check-in. Plus we had an extra breakfast (included in the early checkin). We slept for about one hour, had breakfast with eggs, bread, cheese, tomato and cucumber, tea and grapefruit juice. Then we went back to bed because we were really tired. We woke up at 12. First thing we did was finding a place to exchange money: 15,6 millions of Rial for 400 euro .We have three packs of banknotes that we don’t know where to put. Later lunch with kebab, and off we went to see as much as we could of Tehran because the other Mousavi (at the hotel) suggested not to go back to Tehran before the flight but to take a bus from Isfahan to the airport and we will probably do this.
We walked by the Park-e Shahr where people go to relax after work, in the middle there’s a long pool and if you look North at the horizon you can see the snow-capped peaks of Mount Tochal; skiing slopes (the fourth in altitude in the world) can be reached with a cable car departing from a square in Tehran. The slopes are full of wealthy young people on Fridays (their day off).
I went to the Golestan Palace. Luca didn’t want to go because he’s not interested and saved 2 euro for food. Well, it’s amazing. The garden alone is worth the visit, very well kept, away from the traffic and surrounded by sparkling palaces. I visited only the Hall and it’s amazing: some rooms are covered with mosaics from floor to ceiling and one has the ceiling decorated with plasters and small pieces of mirror. Unfortunately you can’t take pictures inside (I saw someone doing it despite the prohibition, but I preferred not to risk to go to jail – there’s no kidding in Iran), if you wan you can buy a DVD. Or look for the pics on the web.
We scrolled around the bazaar. It was late (about 4 pm) but there was still a big chaos. In the areas outside the bazaar, that had already closed, there were people carrying super heavy carts and others searching in the rubbish for missed out treasures. People say hello all the time and they try to communicate despite their poor English and our zero Farsi (Luca is happy because he too can understand their simple English). Dinner with chicken and potato salad (with a lot of majo) and tongue, then back here at the hotel, to shower and rest our feet.
As usual I’m nervous and I don’t want to go anymore.
It often happens, a few days before departure: I realize how comfortable I am at home, with my routine and my cats, and now that winter is almost over and days are warmer and sunnier, there are a lot of places around here that I could visit and many events to take part to, etc.
But as soon as I will be on the plane and it will be too late to change my mind and the liberating headache will take over, I’ll be shot into the “discovery” version of myself and I will look forward to the long walks and pictures and writing.
What scares me a bit at the moment is:
The picture for the visa that I will get at the airport, is it ok if my hair is visible or should I cover it with a scarf? Meridiani says that I need the scarf, the consulate doesn’t. To be safe I should take another picture with a scarf; I’ll do it if I have time.
The hotel in Tehran hasn’t been confirmed yet. Usually I wouldn’t mind too much, but I need the hotel voucher to get the visa.
Will I be dressed adequately? I have long chemisiers, a scarf to cover my head and I like it, but will it be good enough?
Is the rough plan good or have I planned too many stops? Only in Isfahan and Shiraz we are staying 2 or 3 nights, in other destinations we’ll arrive at about midday, we’ll go to the hotel to drop the bags, go visiting and the next morning we’ll leave. We’ll be back to Italy super tired… but happy! (I hope). Maybe we should skip one place or two and spend more time in the others. I don’t like to rush. But this time we don’t have much time…
Will I have enough time to pack my bags tomorrow or should I start now?
On my boarding pass there’s a nice “M” for male near my name: did I do something wrong while booking or was it the website fault? I was very careful during the booking, m/f and date of birth, but it is true that I was doing many bookings at the same time on various sites and I might have missed something. Will it be a problem at boarding?
What am I forgetting? Because it’s not “if”. Something I’m going to forget for sure. When we went to the Dominican Republic I forgot my notebook battery. Will they let me take the notebook with me this time or will they assume I’m a journalist hence send me back home with the notebook?
In three days I’ll be in Tehran. In the worst case scenario, if anything went wrong, if they send us back, we can still stop in Istanbul, which wouldn’t be a bad place neither…
Updates: a few minutes after I published this, my friend Paola, that works for an airline, told me that the pictue is ok without scarf and for my new gender there is no problem, they’ll board me nonetheless. Good!!
Iran. I want to go before it becomes too popular. Tourism has already increased a lot in the last years, since the political situation is quiet. On the Italian Foreign Minister website there are no dots for special advices for Iran, no danger warnings; it’s been a while since I visited a country with no dangers. There’s a dot for the UK and France, one for Belgium and Turkey, one for Haiti “travels are not recommended unless determined by real necessity”. So this time we are really good, we’re going to a place where “security situation is good”.
We are going for 14 days only. Normally I wouldn’t visit a new country for less than a month, but this time it’s ok because:
the return flight is only 280 euro (Iran is actuallly not too far from Europe, just South of Turkey)
getting the visa requires some time (and as usual we don’t have time, we decided to go yesterday and we have to be back before the end of February because in March Luca has many garden works to do) but if you go for less than 14 days you can get a visa at the airport (this is for Italy, I know that it’s completely different for US or Israel citizens)
4 weeks would be nice in Cuba or Messico, but we went to a Latin country last year (Dominican Republic), I want to change environment and culture
Iran is not too expensive nor cheap like Asia; I guess it will be around 50 euro per day, traveling on a budget; the problem is that you can’t get cash from ATMs (there are ATMs, but they only accept national cards), so you should bring all the money you need in cash. For 30 days it makes 1.500 euro, 3.000 for two people. I’d rather not travel with all that money in my pockets.
so I have the excuse to go back to Iran on a train from Istanbul and see the North of the country, in another trip 🙂
Luca has to work and it wasn’t easy to convince him to go, two weeks is better than nothing
I’m excited at the idea. Two weeks are not a long time, but it will be a nice culture shock and I’ve been wanting to go to Persia for a long time, cradle of humanity. It might be chilly, because despite the fact that it’s closer to the equator, it’s a bit mountainous; the capital Tehran for example is at more than 1.000 meter of altitude, and in most parts of the country temperature is like in Italy.
It took me a few hours to buy the ticket because I had to check 1. the cheapest company (that is Pegasus) 2. the website with the best offer (directly on Pegasus? On lastminute? Expedia?). At the end I bought it on Edreams because I could pay with paypal; lastminute was 40 euro cheaper, but I didn’t have enough money on my card and didn’t want to postpone.