A Magic Carpet Tour of Persia

[Skyring]

When I tried similar photography from my hotel window in Esfahan the manager was knocking on my door 5 minutes later stating neighbours were complaining I was trying to film inside their houses. I was actually videoing an aircraft contrail with the mountains in the back ground. I explained I was not filming houses just aircraft. "You are filming aircraft?" Damn! Wrong answer. I was sure the police would be the next knock at the door but all worked out well.

I was kind of worried about a similar reaction. I am quite sure the occupants of the apartments opposite worried about tourists intruding, and here I was, highlighted by the open window in a building of closed panes, a camera on tripod with a big lens staring right at them!

Privacy is important to Iranians. In public, they must conform to rules of dress and behaviour. In private, their lives are their own.

I could care less about what Tehranians do in their homes. Trying to make sense of the big picture is what intrigues me. The endless city against the backdrop of the snowy mountains delighted me. Nothing like it at home!

 

[Skyring]

Outside the museum, and I felt what I generally feel after visiting such a place. Excited and uplifted, my eyes open.

There were spring flowers all around, so of course I whipped out my camera to capture a bloom or two.



Open the aperture right up to blur the background, make the flower pop out. Nice bit of bokeh, there.

Hang on, what's that black blob?

A cat!

Now, I've been missing my cat. It's only been a day or two, really, but I'm a cat person, and rarely does a day go by without some solid interaction both with Misty, and the neighbours' cat Jem. The park around the hotel is alive with stray cats. And wild birds. And picnickers. May be some sort of relationship going on there.



Depth of field works both ways, and the autofocus latches onto the cat. It's my pancake lens, a 20mm ƒ1.7 prime, and it's reasonably fast, but no zoom to it at all. The cat is a tart. She comes over for a good old pat, and I give her some love. Not the first to do so, I notice, and she's about ready for her confinement.



I'd love to stay, honest, but the rest of the party is heading away, and I dare not lose them. But there's time for one more happy snap. Spring is coming in and there are flowers everywhere. Iranians love their gardens as much as anyone else. Flowers, fountains, paths, greenery - every traffic roundabout has something.

 

[meloz]

The endless city against the backdrop of the snowy mountains delighted me. Nothing like it at home!

That's why we travel, to see something different. I enjoyed driving for miles and miles in the desert surrounded by mountains. Stunning in it's own way.

 

[Skyring]

Another random flower picture. Cheap thrills, I guess. I just open the exposure, hold the camera close to the colour, take the shot. Spring everywhere, bright and cheerful.

Lunch was interesting. We took it in the coffee shop, which promised "fast food". Someone ordered a hamburger, which turned out to be just the meat patty. No buns, no salad, just the meat and a solid slab of onion.

I looked at the "trout schnitzel", and this is what I got.



Fried trout with veges and salad. Not exactly what I'd call a schnitzel, but I guess the translators were pushing the envelope. All good fun, and we certainly didn't go hungry. The "hamburger" was immense. If it had been in McDonalds, the whole hamburger, with bun and lettuce and special sauce etc., would have been about the size of the average person's head. Some more of the hoppy Beer Zero.

I could live with this.

 

[Skyring]

For dinner, we looked at the hotel's Persian restaurant again, but it was closed. Or perhaps their idea of a good opening time didn't coincide with our idea of a good dining time.

Whatever. We ventured outside. There were more of the tour group arrived now. They flew in, they checked in, they zonked out. And woke up in time for dinner.

Vicki led us out, through the park, and over to one of the busier streets, where she was aiming to find a hotel restaurant that was open and had good reviews.

The park was buzzing. People strolling - even a few couples holding hands in public - young people playing table shuttlecock or football, old people playing chess. A great atmosphere.

A LOT of young people. After the revolution in 1979, Khomeini urged the people to reproduce, and during the eight year war with Iraq beginning shortly thereafter, he urged the people to make their own army to replace and surpass the horrendous losses.

Result: there are a great number of young Persians. They vote, they want more freedom, more openness, better education.

And they get out and enjoy themselves on a weekend night.



I'm guessing this is an Italian restaurant. But we were looking for authentic Persian, not pizza and pasta. (Though an authentic Peroni or prosecco would have gone down nicely. Just sayin'…)

We headed on down North Kargar Street. Crossing some of the intersections was more excitement than we really needed, but at least the traffic lights seemed to slow things down a little. Iranians might not respect zebra crossings, but red lights hold the drivers back. A bit.

The trees on this wide boulevard were floodlit in changing colours. The green on the fresh spring foliage was amazing, but I liked the purple end of the spectrum, particularly if I could capture a bit of motion blur from the traffic with a long exposure.



No idea what this was, but I liked its shape and the colour stripes of its cover wall. Some sort of noisy machinery, I suppose. There were several noisy, polluting examples of construction or road equipment that were hidden away like this, though of course the noise and the dust and the fumes cheerfully escaped onto the throng.

 

[Skyring]

I wish that Iranian restaurants would take up the Japanese habit of having carefully crafted examples of the dishes on offer on display in the window. So many times we'd peruse the menu, make a selection, and either wonder what was going to show up before us, or be puzzled at what was presented and whether there'd been some mixup in the kitchen.

The occasional wild translation didn't help at all. "Fried half Hen" I can understand, but what is "grilled, grinded lamb"?



I opted for a 0.0 beer, but this time they came in fruit flavours. Lemon seemed the least nocuous, so I had a lemon beer, expecting maybe something like a Radler.

It was refreshing, to be sure, but it wasn't beer as I know it. Lemon iced tea without the sweetness.



The chicken stroganoff came with chips and a piece of artfully grilled toast. And enough food to feed three. I did my best, but there was still half a plateful left when I wobbled out.

Other dishes were equally gigantic. Kerri was served what looked like a small hill of rice topped with red berries and yellow lava stains. Barberries and saffron.

No sign of the promised chicken, but she discovered it buried deep in the rice. It looked raw, but turned out to have been slow-cooked in barberry juice (or something). Pronounced delicious, but there was still enough rice hillocks left at the end of the meal to build a suburb on. With elevated blocks.

Then again, if I wanted certainty in my meals, I'd head for McDonalds. I'd know exactly what was coming.

On that note, McDonalds has not yet hit Iran, though Dominos Pizza has secured a foothold. McDonalds is both keenly awaited and feared by the locals. A taste of the iconic American cuisine, but also the beginning of the end for family-run restaurants. When they do break into the Iranian market (and it will be sooner rather than later, I'm thinking), there will be lines out the door half a block long.

The Iranian attitude to America is interesting. Although the conservative leaders have preached of The Great Satan, and there are still some cherished propaganda murals around, such as the one outside the old US Embassy featuring the Statue of Liberty with a skull face, most Iranians have long had access to American television through clandestine satellite dishes.

American pop culture is a hit with the younger generation. Pepsi and Coke are big sellers. No Starbucks - yet - but again, I expect huge sales when they arrive.

 

[Skyring]

The atmosphere out on the street was fantastic. The illuminated trees were still going strong in their electric colours, but there had been some local football win, and everyone was celebrating. Motorcyclists careered along, waving the team colours with one hand and texting their friends with the other.

Horns honked - well, more than usual - people yelled excitedly and there were smiles all around. What a buzz!



Street food was in evidence. These folk were cooking corncobs over coals. Right there on the footpath.



This young lady was as close to a beggar as I ever saw in Iran. She is selling purse-sized packs of tissues, a necessary accompaniment to the toilets here. Squat toilets, mostly, but they rarely supplied toilet paper.

Girls - often quite young girls - appeared around mid-evening to sit at street corners. I can't imagine that there was anything going on beyond selling small items, but what a contrast to the streets of any comparable American city! Beggars and panhandlers would be out in force on such a night.

 

[meloz]

Re fast food. I found a fake KFC in Shiraz. It was a complete copy, even down to the trade mark stamp. The 11 secret herbs and spices have not made their way to Iran just yet though.

 

[Skyring]

We took a different route back to the hotel, ducking into the Laleh Bazaar. One of our party wanted to buy an alarm clock, and we were all keen to see what was going on.

Laleh Bazaar was on the buzz. Colour, noise, family groups, young people, old, everyone having a grand time.



There were shops and entertainments, rides and snacks. And alarm clocks.

 

[Skyring]

Day 1: Arrival at Tehran - you will be met at the airport for transfer to our hotel. There are no organised activities for the rest of the day so, depending upon your arrival time, have a rest or a walk in the park next to the hotel, and get acclimatised. The exchange rate at the hotel cashier is not favourable, so do not change a lot of money there. There is a money changer opposite the hotel where the rate is much better. Take extreme care crossing the road, attaching yourself to some locals is the safest way!! The local currency notes (coinage is almost non-existent) are called Rials and there are about 33,500 of them to one U.S. dollar (at the time of writing). (From the tour itinerary notes)

This completed our time in Tehran. The tour hadn't even begun yet; this was just the party gathering from their various journeys. Some came via Dubai, some Doha, some in other ways. Tehran is reasonably well served from various more conventional cities.

Day 2: This morning we fly to TABRIZ, the capital of Persian Azerbaijan and a very ancient city on the Silk Road. We will visit some sites in Tabriz before checking in to our hotel for overnight.

Next morning, we had a wakeup call at 0500, bags outside at 0530, on the bus at six (IIRC). We two dragged our bags down to the lobby, where we met our junior guide, Navid (whose name I have most likely spelled incorrectly). Faced with sixteen Westerners craving coffee, the hotel opened up a section of the breakfast buffet and some of us had three cups in quick succession, along with whatever we could grab from the "Kind of Bread" selection.

We also met Parri, a young lady of immense experience, about as tall as my wife (i.e. not very), who was the most wonderful "straight man" for Bruce. They have worked together for many years, and she is awake up to his tall stories. An extraordinary double act. She knows the tour business inside out and made everything run smoothly. A formidable guide.

She was mentoring Navid, who was learning the ropes. The tourism industry in Iran is expanding rapidly, and rightly so. There is a lot to offer, and European tourists in particular are flooding in. Navid turned out to be a very pleasant, capable, and cheerful young man, and both he and Parri kept us informed, entertained and on track. Pasargad Tours, I receive no commissions.

The bus took us past the Azadi Tower, a significant monument with bold and beautiful lines. I would love to investigate this site more closely - there are extensive garden surrounds and a museum beneath - but we only caught glimpses in passing. The photograph below is lifted from Wikipedia.



We headed to Mehrabad airport (THR), once Tehran's main airport (and still the busiest) but since superseded for international services by IKA. This airport is straight out of the Sixties, including many of the aircraft on view. I saw a B707 taxying and taking off, leaving four thick smoke trails as it headed for glory.



Also a military airbase, it was the target in a surprise airstrike by Iraq, opening the long Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Examining the site on Google Maps, it reveals an incredible scatter of aircraft of all shapes, sizes and origins. Any planespotter would go nuts over the sprawling collection. Many airliners are apparent victims of the economic sanctions, unable to be repaired and scattered in odd corners of the single-runway airfield.

Heavily defended, it is probably not the best place to go taking photographs, and I was persuaded to delete some fuzzy shots of Mig-29s and F-5Es taking off.

We were dropped off near one of the terminals, luggage distributed and we set off through preliminary security. All bags go through X-ray before check-in, and passengers are given a brief scan. Men and women are divided during the process, presumably so that male security officers don't have to pat down female passengers and vice versa. I didn't get to see the screened off womens' security line, but my mind filled in the lurid details.

And, as soon as we were through, we turned around and walked out the door again. "Last minute terminal change," announced Parri, looking annoyed.

Back to the bus stop, back on the bus, off to another terminal, through another security line and off to checkin, where Parri supervised. I noticed some of the party were lagging behind and paused halfway to direct the stragglers.

Two of them didn't show up at all, and I hurried on to check my bags and receive boarding passes.

Later we learnt that one member of the group had been detected with alcohol in his bags, arrested, and led in handcuffs straight off to court. Navid remained behind to give what assistance he could, while the doubtless increasingly peeved Parri herded us through more security checks to the gate. I'll note here that Iran does not insist that liquids be pulled out and screened, nor do they require shoes and belts to be removed. TSA, take note.

A new airport for me, and a new airline. ATA.

 

[Skyring]

Saturday 16 April 2016
I3 5202 THR-TBZ
MD-82 EP-TAN Seats 18E/18F
Scheduled: 0815
Boarding: 0745 G12 (bus)
Pushback: 0815
Takeoff: 0825
Landing: 0912
Gate: 0917

Boarding is by bus. Oh joy. But being out in the open air gives me a chance to appreciate the enormous variety of aircraft around. Even the cluster of MD-82s of Ata Airlines looks like something from a previous age. Over on the far side of the runway are military transports, high-winged, high-tailed. And even some fighters.

Once seated, I crane around. Yes! definitely fighter jets. A couple of Mig-29s and a gaggle of smaller types I can't immediately identify, but later decide are F5Es left over from the previous administration.

Oddly enough, they have right of way, and head off, one after the other, into the sky.

We follow them, heading west, mountains to the north.



Only a shortish flight today, and we have been warned that Iranian airline food is not much chop, but we get a fairly solid snack and - oh joy! - coffee!





Always fun to peer at the packaging, check the ingredient list for exotica, puzzle over the weird tucker other nations prefer. I have a swag of Tim-Tams in my checked luggage. Later.

The lady beside me and I need milk in our coffee. There's a sachet covered in Persian writing in the snack pack, and she opens hers to pour the creamer powder into her cup. She stops, puzzled, until we realise it's not a white powder so much as a refresher towelette.



Playing with cream cheese, jam, and flatbread keeps us occupied until Tabriz appears outside. A city of "only" one and a half million souls, it appears to stretch on for a long way, mainly in grey apartment blocks, albeit far less dense than the capital.

"Welcome to East Azerbaijan", a sign greets us as we walk across the tarmac.

 

[Skyring]

Our tour bus awaits as we haul our bags out of the single carousel terminal. This is Business Class bus travel, right here. Generous seat pitch, footrests, drink holders, wide, reclining seats. Three abreast seating with a generous aisle down the middle. Not enough room in the overhead racks for my carry on, but that's okay, it can ride underneath, and I'll use my camera bag as a daypack.



Speaking of buses, public transport in Iran is gender-segregated. The men ride in the front and the women have a party in the back. Tourist coaches seem to be exempt from the morals police, though we do get the odd cop boarding to check we've all got our seatbelts tight. They can only get aboard at highway checkpoints, and we are asked before each one to check our seatbelts, so it's rather pointless.

The bus windows don't open, and we rarely stop and get out along the highway, so most of my landscape shots are from inside, complete with reflections.



"Look, the Big Apple!" calls out one wag as we circle a park. Iranian cities are plentifully supplied with parks, monuments, playgrounds and theme parks scattered between the grey ranks of apartments. Town planning is obviously a serious business here. At home in Canberra, empty land is usually seen by the local council as biding its time until a developer makes a sufficiently large contribution to the ruling party, and then it's as high and wide as they can pack 'em in, but here, there is space for people.



I've studied up on our hotel, using the handy list sent to us by Vicki before departure. I spot the thing on a hilltop. Brand new, the ElGoli Pars, aimed squarely at the tourist market. We disembark, our bags are marked with room numbers by the efficient staff, and we have ten minutes to freshen up - i.e. use proper toilets - before visiting some local sights.

The view from the rooms is amazing. Parkland with mountains in the distance. The glass elevators give another view in a different direction, out over more parkland with a huge railway station in the middle distance.

Our bags arrive, we drag a few necessities out, and then down to the lobby for the afternoon's delight.

 

[Skyring]

First stop, after an interesting tour of downtown Tabriz, is the Blue Mosque.



Yeah, doesn't look the part, does it? I've seen more colourful blocks of flats here. and that's saying something.



It has a certain charm in the arches of the cloisters. Reminiscent of Mediaeval cathedrals in its forms.


(By Eugène Flandin - Voyage en Perse, avec Flandin, éd. Gide et Baudry, 1851, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29150912)

Apparently it used to be blue, but the Fifteenth Century wonder was destroyed by an earthquake in 1779 and repairs didn't begin until 1973.

Some fragments survive and are carefully preserved amongst the more modern (and drab) brick.





As with every other tour group in the world, about a million photographs are taken. I appear to be the only person with anything like a serious camera, but point and shoots are pretty good nowadays, not to mention iPhones improving with each new release, and the iPad is rapidly becoming the camera of choice, especially if you're standing in the first row.

 

[RooFlyer]

Can you explain the 'East Azerbaijan' sign?

 

[Skyring]

Can you explain the 'East Azerbaijan' sign?

East Azerbaijan is one of Iran's 31 districts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Azerbaijan_Province

West Azerbaijan is on the western side of Orumiyeh lake. Historically, Russia, followed by the USSR, has claimed this part of Persia. Stalin almost succeeded at the Tehran Conference in annexing the area permanently. And killing off the German officer corps post-war.

 

[Skyring]

The original entrance to the mosque showcases some of the past glory, assembled in a jigsaw fashion from the earthquake ruins. Tabriz, as a whole, is built on an earthquake zone and many of the buildings reflect this. Their construction looks appalling to our Western eyes, but on examination, it seems to work.



The Blue Mosque is definitely not an exemplar of modern anti-earthquake measures. The reconstructed areas give an inkling of what the old structure would have looked like complete. It must have been a stunning sight both from a distance and up close. The detail and beauty of the tilework is incredible.



Here's most of the group (we're still missing Navid and the grog smuggler, last seen hauled off in chains to face Islamic justice, and of course the photographer) being guided by Parri (black clothes, white scarf). Their background is plain brick, which presumably will one day be covered in modern tilework.

My head spins at the thought of the work and the expense of the complete project. It will take years. Decades.



Parri's scarf slips off as she shows more of the mosque's details. This was a common problem with the women - wear a light enough headscarf to avoid overheating, and when it slips back you have very little idea of how far it's gone.

Alternatively, when it's fully forward, you have no peripheral vision. There was a movement amongst the female tourists to have the men wear scarves for a day, just so they could experience the problems first hand.

I responded that this would seem to the locals that we were insulting Islam by taking the mickey, and I could appreciate the difficulties of proper hejab from a safe distance, thank'ee!



Some of the tilework from the interior arches. Imagine the whole roof including the dome covered in such work! Heaven indeed.

Notice the clever effect of the series of niches at the corners. This resembles stalagtites, if you squint a bit.

The intricacy and the beauty of the few fragments remaining have me working overtime to imagine the whole buiding - inside and out - in such tiles.

Six hundred years back, this city on the old Silk Road must have had some serious money available.

 

[Skyring]

Two final images from this building, and I'll move on. Two points to notice here. Three if you count the lighting, gold against the shadowed blue.

First is the scope of the tilework, both that extant and that to come. The area to be covered is immense, but the detail is truly mindboggling. It has to form a coherent pattern, and there's a lot of calligraphy in the tilework. The verses have to be sized and presented in such a way that they perfectly fill the space allocated. Some verses are intended to wrap around the whole interior, beginning and ending at the same point. Getting that exactly right must have been a hell of a difficult job.

And notice that Iranian couple holding hands in a mosque? The older hands on the tour group were attuned to these details that we freshmen wouldn't have noticed, they being so ordinary. But public displays of affection are not just frowned upon by the conservatives here, they have, in the past, been met with severe punishment, including summary execution.



A closer view of the calligraphy. The flow and rhythm of the characters contributes to the beauty. Try to squeeze in a few extra characters, or to stretch it out a little, and you lose the harmony. Also note the different colours of tiling. The lighter areas are just paint, not original. The original tiles must have been a jigsaw puzzle and a half. I'll bet there's a workshop nearby just full of bits that haven't been matched out yet.

 

[pagingjoan]

Wonderful.
Keep it coming, please.

 

[Skyring]

One thing that I need to do is organise my photos. At home I have a big hard drive, and everything gets dumped on there. On the road, I have my iPhone, iPad, Macbook, two cameras with a chip each.

I soon find that I'm scrambling for space. I'm not keen on deleting files, my MacBook with an SSD is always short on space, and the iPad gets full rapidly. Finding another chip in Iran is problematic, let alone a hard drive.

Even if I find a shop that sells them, I've got to have the correct money, because using my cards here is not going to work. Yeah, there are ATMs here, but they aren't linked to the foreign banking system.

I eventually, on the last night in Tehran, change another US fifty find a camera shop and get a new chip, which lasts me for the rest of the trip through Athens and home. Have to swap it between cameras, but that's okay.

Of course I have more drives and chips than I need. At home.

So now I'm home I've got photographs scattered all over the shop wherever I could find room. Please excuse the delays as I hunt down the shots I need.

On that note, here are three beauties:



Just a display in the front hall. Not sure if these are artifacts found in the rubble, or decorations for the final rebuild, or items for sale, but they are beautiful.



And outside again, there's nature's own beauty. Parri, apart from pointing out yet more stuff for us to photograph, counts us off before we walk next door to the Azerbaijan Museum, which apparently has some good stuff inside.

And she's also conferring with Javid, who tells us that our miscreant member and he are catching the next flight and will be joining us for lunch.

 

[love_the_life]

Stunning pictures; thanks for the great TR so far.