Iran Summer 2019: a memorable experience in culture and humanity.
Greetings from our mandatory home retreat where memories travel wherever they like: roughly 2000 pictures show breathtaking architecture: mosques, bridges, badgirs, and the Azadi Tower, buzzling bazaars and squares, bridges, fairytale palaces, excavations older than antiquity, stunning art and charming poets’ tombs and memorials. No time and space can show all the wonders of our trip. This post is to say thank you for sharing all the beauty with us.
Thank you for welcoming us in your splendid mosques and shrines.
Tehran: Imam Khomeini Mosque. The young woman put her baby in my arms. (It was a good omen: I’m going to be a granny in September!).
nice small mosque in the North of Tehran
Masjed-e Shah, Esfahan, refined decoration in blue tiles
Masjed-e Jameh, the Friday Mosque, Esfahan
Masjed-e Jameh, the Friday Mosque, Yazd with a badgir front right
Amir Chakhmaq Mosque, Yazd, stunning facade
Thank you for offering us snacks and tea, for giving me a clean chador wherever it was necessary, for refreshing me with juicy apples in the afternoon heat when resting at the mosque entrance. It is quite common that people share what they have to eat with others, even more so in a mosque where many visitors offer something to other visitors. (below: shrine Borgeh Sayd Rokknaddin, Yazd; Shah-e-Cheragh Mausoleum, Shiraz; Ayatollah Chomeini Mosque, Tehran).
After a warm welcome to the shrine Imamzadeh-ye Ali Ebn-e Hamze (Shiraz) with a cup of tea, some biscuits and a freshly starched and ironed chador the ladies tending to the shrine showed me around.
With the smallest vocabulary imaginable the women from very young to almost elderly managed to quench their curiosity: “we Christians … me Protestant … husband Catholic … me German … husband Italian” (shining examples of cosmopolitanism and tolerance 😉 The ladies responded with enthusiasm: “Oh very good, very very good!” I tried to buy the chador from the shrine, just to have my own, they telephoned around but it wasn’t for sale ;-(
What is difficult to take photos of is the friendliness, gentleness, hospitality and generosity of the people. Thank you for making us feel at home and giving us a taste of your humour …
…thank you for helping us and taking good care of us: the two young chaps, one a taxi driver (safe driving!), one a soldier on leave even insisting on paying the taxi when we got to Rasht at night and didn’t find our way to the hotel. A family having a chat with us on a Sunday outing, oops Friday outing, to the gardens that once belonged to the Pahlevi family.
Making friends on every occasion: visiting an Armenian Museum, mosques and churches, and having coffee on the road (in Northern Iran, Naser Baini, thank you for getting us home safe!)
Proud parents send their kids ahead to talk to us and practice their English. They always get a whole beginners’ lesson: “What’s your name? Where are you from? How old are you?” Numbers are difficult and they go back to their parents. The older ones ask: “Do you like Iran? What is your religion?” And boys: “What is your favourite football team?”
The miniaturist Hussein Fallahi (Esfahan), a world-renowned artist, told us to pay on our own with our card at his card payment machine while wrapping up our souvenirs. How did he know we weren’t frauds? Do frauds not exist in Iran? Everybody pays by card and everybody tells his pin to the shopkeeper or the waiter. My first reaction at a juice vendor: “No, no, no! I digit the pin myself.” I looked at the card payment machine and couldn’t read the numbers. Everybody around me bent over laughing. Infact, you experience the opposite of cheating: you ask someone where you can buy, let’s say, washing detergent, he goes out of his way to show you the shop and before you realise what’s happening, he has payed for it and tells you, where you can find him in case you’re looking for anything else (That was in Tabriz). Or you meet a young man in the street (above) “collecting friends” taking pictures and exchanging a few words in English, or you take photos of the children posing dressed up in traditional clothing.
And thank you Mehri and your wonderful family for sharing your family life with us, for taking us on an adventure trip into the montains around Yazd and for inviting us to the best restaurant of the whole trip.!!!!
In gratitude to you Mehri and all the other people who helped us to get to know the country, the culture, and its people … and contributed to a wonderful and safe holiday.
Sorry Rasool Zabihi, I haven’t got a picture of you and your guides, but I made TAP Persia known to everybody!!! Thank you very much, you and your staff, too.
gerburgkamm 