Shiraz – Day 3

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Dave
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Iranian family leaving the gym…all 4 on one moto!

Day 3 in Shiraz was a crazy and busy day as we had only 5 hours a sleep after the flight from Tehran.  Our guide led us from one site to the next at break net speed.  We visited several mosques, bazaars and parks and those who were unable to keep up we’re berated by our guide who expects everyone to walk in lockstep and has little patience for stragglers. Still, we managed to lose a couple of people along the way and search parties needed to be engaged. We try to look out for each other as we all get to avoid being the one that has to deal with the guide’s lecture on punctuality and paying attention. 

Concerning food, we have mostly survived on kebabs, Coca-Cola and the occasional packaged Iranian Hostess-like cakes and cookies. We did have a Shirazi speciality dessert yesterday that consisted of what seemed like very cold spaghetti cut very short doused with a combination of rose water and lemon very sweet syrup.  The spaghetti was semi hard but sort of melted in your mouth as it was chewed.  For dinner we went to a really good restaurant near the bazaar.. I had a fish kebab that was outstanding but ate far too much the entire day and need to curb it back a bit today. 

This is day 4 and we are on the bus to Persepolis. I am looking forward to the trip as I didn’t immerse myself in the place the last time I was here. I will make sure I have a couple books with me so I can read as I am walking.  Ok, the bus is bouncing around too much and I can’t write much more…especially with my shoulder which is still giving me problems. 

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Stella in a mosque doorway

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Tehran – Day 2

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Dave
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Schoolgirls at the Saadabad Palace

Day two in Iran and we spent most of the time driving in a van back to north Tehran to visit the Saadabad Palace which was closed yesterday.   Because of the terrible traffic in the city, getting from point A to B is excruciatingly slow and limited our ability to visit more sites.  Also, I don’t think our tour guide is very keen on spending much time in the center of the city and seemed very set on heading back to the peace and quiet of north Tehran. Good for him but bad for all of us who have had more than our fill of visiting palaces…they loll look the same. We missed out on many things I would have preferred to see like the National Museum, Carpet Museum and the Jewel Museum. We did have a nice lamb kebab lunch at a downtown restaurant and we also got to visit the Azadi Monument which I missed the last time I was here.

I can’t write much more as we took a red eye flight to Shiraz and just landed at our hotel…a dive of a place that isn’t a good start to this part of the trip. Hope things get better from here.  Almost 3AM…good night. 

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Motorcycles outside of our Tehran hotel

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Tehran – Day 1

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Dave
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Nothern Tehran Palace Qajar Carpet

After only four hours of sleep we were picked up at our hotel by our tour guide although it took quite a while to sort through all of the tourists and match them up with their assigned guides. We thought for a while that we were the odd men out as we didn’t seem to have a guide but he eventually showed up late and we were on our way.  We are a group of 6–three Americans, one Aussie and two from somewhere in the Baltics, I believe.  Today seemed to be a make it up as we go day as the first destination we tried to go to–a Palace–closed at 10AM for tourists. This after an almost hour long drive from our hotel to the hillside of northern Tehran where the air is cooler and cleaner. We eventually were taken to another less impressive Palace where we stayed for a couple hours and then taken to lunch at a restaurant in the very nice Jamshidieh Park closely. 

Not much of a first day and we probably could have stayed at the hotel and slept for several more hours but we had little choice. One thing I forgot about Tehran is the unbelievably large amount of traffic and drivers like nowhere else in the world. I though Rome was organized traffic chaos but Tehran is 100 times as bad…it is completely disorganized chaos that somehow works out for everyone–cars, motorcycles and pedestrians alike. It is mesmerizing watching drivers work their way out of what is seemingly an almost certain disaster. Another item forgotten is the amount of pollution…you can see it hanging in the air.  If the climate change folks have hopes that things can be reversed they only need to visit this city to realize all hope is lost.  I don’t think there is any way to contain this. 

We are back at the hotel where we will most likely sleep the rest of the day and night awY and hope for a more organized day tomorrow. Too tired to write anymore. Good night. 

 

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On the way to Iran…first stop Vienna.

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Dave
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Vienna from the top of St. Stephens church

When I left Louisville on late Wednesday evening I was convinced that I was not ready for this trip…both physically and mentally. I had to schedule a last minute meeting with my doctor because my recovering shoulder wasn’t recovering; it seemed to be getting progressively worse. Still, I managed the 7 hour bus ride to Chicago, a 9 hour wait at the airport, an 8 hour flight to Dusseldorf, another 2 hour flight to Vienna where we managed a brief pit stop in the city center.   After all of this we still managed to climb the 350+ steps to near the top of St. Stephens church to get the view of Vienna pictured above.  We also had lunch at a rib place in Vienna where each of us devoured 4 racks of ribs each.  We were shocked when then brought so many to the table but apparently this was a single serving. So, don’t let anyone tell you that the U.S. Is the only place with large portion sizes.

It was hard for me to get a feel for Vienna during this briefs stay. It didn’t have the immediate impact positive that Istanbul had when we had an equally brief layover there during last year’s Central Asia trip. But then again, I had already been to Istanbul for a longer stay before that trip so I knew the city fairly well.

We are on the plane to Tehran at this very moment…halfway through the flight. I hope to have much more to report in the not two weeks..

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Yes, back to Iran

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Dave

After waiting close to two months to receive our visa approval and MFA code from the Iranian government and another two weeks waiting while our passports were being processed at the Pakistan embassy in DC, we finally received our visas yesterday…with just a bit more than 2 weeks left before we planned to leave for our trip. We hurriedly booked our flights to Tehran and are ready to go.

I have acquired some technology that will allow me to post more often during this trip and I look forward to conveying our experiences using both photos and prose. The trip begins April 17…hope you care enough to follow our adventure.

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