Yazd, Shiraz, Tehran & Home

I'm gonna compress my last 3 stops in Iran into one, especially because towards the end for me it became more about the people than the places.

So from Esfahan, we went to Yazd, where we looked up a guide from our LP book and as luck would have it, Moj Taba came into our lives. A pleasant congenial chap, full of stories, entrepreneurial, and funny. He took us on a ride to Kharanaq, the Silent Hills of the Zoroastrians and even helped us get our first water pipe.

From Yazd we made our way to Shiraz to gaze on the ruins of Persepolis. It was disappointing, especially coming from seeing Hieropolis in Turkey. Not an awful lot to see honestly, a 1/2 day is more than sufficient.

We also celebrated New Year's in Shiraz with some mates we met on the road. We started with a nice dinner, then some shisha, non-alcoholic beer and then sparklers. It was good, it was also the most sober New Year's ever for me, which was a nice turn.

Then Tehran round 2. Only this time it was so much more meaningful and fun thanks to Javad and the Tizmaghz family. From dinner, to the flea market, to the family lunch. We were family, for that I'll always be eternally grateful. There was no better way to end our trip in Iran.

Iran gave me a lot more than I gave her. I made friends for a lifetime. The country redefined beauty and humility for me. It's hard to put it all into words but it's embedded deep in my soul. I'll end here with a big thank you to both Iran and Turkey. Much love.

Tehran: A once over

So we had a 2 night pit stop at Tehran. The idea was to go skiing on the Alborz but Gaelle is still recovering so we figured we'd leave the skiing for later on.
Tehran, if you read the Lonely Planet guide at this time of year is polluted, traffic a nightmare, people pleasant as ever, liberal women on the streets, weather chilly at best.
I would agree for all except one, I didn't see nor notice any pollution, at least nothing out of the ordinary. I'd also have to add that the Metro's here during peak hour make sardine cans feel like a luxury. The women here would not be out of place on the streets of Paris or Milan, chic, elegant and beautiful. Crossing streets in Tehran is a cross between swimming with alligators and breathing fire. One wrong step and you're mati. Obeying traffic lights here is a sign of civil disobedience. The weather is so cold that I slept in my shorts and t-shirt.
Ahh but for the people, from the congenial Mr. Moussavi of Firouzeh Hotel, to strangers on the street who were happy just to stop a minute and talk. But I'll reserve the biggest thank you for Vahid, the Zara store assistant where we got Gaelle less wintery clothing for winter. We sat down after, had cay, exchanged stories of our countries, listened to some good Pink Floyd, Lionel Richie and his favourite James Blunt. Vahid hasn't had it easy, yet still sees the romance of this life. A good lad, I only wish the best for him and may we meet again soon.
Oh yeah, we also tried to catch the play Hamlet in Tehran last night, 23/12. Too bad they were sold out.
Enroute to Esfahan now aboard this swanky bus, RM15. (7 hour journey). It's Christmas eve. Lots of love, Merry Christmas y'all.

Tabriz: Love redefined

Tabriz. Eastern Iran. My entry into Iran. Tabriz to me will always be defined by one man and his family, that man is Vali Naghavi.
He chanced upon us or maybe it was fated. Here we were a little lost, looking for the Tourist Information Office (TOI) outside the infamous UNESCO listed Tabriz Bazaar, he rather gingerly came up to us, said hello and asked if he could help. Vali at most speaks 30 words of English, I speak 10 words of Farsi, out of this though evolved a friendship that transcended language. The stuff of movies you might say.
Vali proceeded to call Javad, a lawyer friend of his who speaks good English, he then had me explain to Javad what I needed and Javad then translated it to him. We then did find the TOI but they were only open at 4pm, we had an hour to burn, I asked Vali to lunch, wanting to return his favor. Oh boy, how wrong I was, he invited us home for lunch and looking at his expectant face we agreed.
Took a savari (hired car) to his home on the outskirts of central Tabriz and met his grandmother, father, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, uncle's and aunt's. A big family indeed, living in the same building on 3 different floors. It's times like these that you too miss your family a little. But thanks to Vali and his family feelings of missing were soon forgotten and we begun gesturing/ talking with limited English/ Farsi, with the help of a dictionary too. We shared a meal of fried chicken, fried potatoes, as well as a mixture of chicken and chicken peas. Delicious! Javad dropped by too, to serve as translator for all of us.
Gaelle unfortunately fell a little ill the next day so after visiting the Bazaar, Blue Mosque, Fire Tower, Azerbaijan Museum we headed back to the guest house so she could get some rest. I met Vali again that night, explained Gaelle's situation and we then proceeded to the pharmacy to get her some medication. Vali was by my side through all of this. We had dinner and promised to meet up the next day as it was going to be our last night in Tabriz. The next day Gaelle and myself, together with Aleksandra, a Slovenian traveller took a trip down to Kandovan, the Kappadokya of Iran. I witnessed the heaviest snowfall yet, another first. The kind of biting cold that feels as if your hands are on fire.
Met with Vali upon our return, followed him home and met more of his family members. This time we had with us some baklava and kiwi fruits. We joked, laughed, played, talked. We were family.
As I'm on the bus now to Tehran, beautiful sprawling countryside rolling by, I only hope I managed to convey my gratitude to Vali and his family for everything they gave us. The sense of family and love. Vali made me promise to come back with my Mum, I can only imagine what an adventure that would be for the both of us. I too made him promise to learn English and make his way to Malaysia where his brother awaits with open arms.

Esfahan: Pretty much everything

Esfahan. We arrived in Esfahan on 24/12, Christmas eve at about 4pm. We checked into Totia Hotel which was gorgeous by the way. Lonely Planet describes Totia as a 3-star hotel with 1-star prices, ah huh, got that right.
Now we had reached Esfahan on a mission, the mission was to find a church to attend Christmas mass. I had decided that Esfahan was a better choice than Tehran simply due to its history, Esfahan in Safavid times, housed a large Armenia community which were Christians. There was also a must visit monument from those times, the Vank Cathedral in Jolfa. That is where our search started.
We got to the cathedral at about 4.30pm, immediately spying in the courtyard a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, the whole shindig. We enquired at the ticket counter on a church for mass and the lady advised us visit first and come back later for information. We had struck gold. The museum was a museum, Bible's, Quran's, relics of a time long ago were on display. The neighbouring Cathedral of St. Joseph of Arimathea though however was a visual feast. Vivid colors, paintings Renaissance style adorned all 4 sides of the cathedral. Upon closer inspection though some of the images were positively morbid, especially the one depicting the suffering of St. Gregor the Illuminator.
We then made our way back to the lady at the ticket counter, she gave us an address and time. 7pm. It was then 5.30pm. We thanked her, rushed back to our hotel, grabbed a quick bite, changed into some fresh clothes, got another cab, cabbie left us in the wrong place, asked a shopkeeper for directions, was eventually showed to the church by a somewhat kooky man and attended mass.
Mass itself was beautiful, said in Armenian. There were about 120 people in attendance, now the language barrier I felt was not a barrier, mass was spiritual and reverent. There were two songs in French which got Gaelle excited and two in English. Mass ended at 8pm, we wished a few people a Merry Christmas, called home to Malaysia, wished the family, called France, wished the family and all this done on roaming on my DiGi line, props to DiGi, awesome service. We shared a pizza after and called it a day. That folks was my Christmas miracle.
Esfahan was gorgeous, from the mosques, the restaurants (Sharzad and Bastani deserve mentions), the bazaars (the most we've shopped yet) to just walking its streets, though it did get awfully cold at times.
As usual I'll let my photos add more meat to my stories.  I hope you enjoy them when it's finally published.

Van: Friendliness redefined

Arrived in Van under a sheet of the purest white snow, snow so white it made Snow White look like a Negro by comparison. 
But allow me to backtrack a little. We decided to take the train to Van, experience some rail travel in Turkey and all that jazz. The journey would take us 20 hours from Kayseri to Tatvan. We boarded the train at 1845, 16/12 and we were on our way. We purchased a 4 person couchette, suffice to say it wasn't my favourite tale of travel and 20 hours in a train is way too long, there's only so much reading, music, oohing and aahing one can do. Also there wasn't a cafeteria on board despite the website claiming the contrary. We'd packed 2 wafer bars, 2 Snickers, 1 mandarin, 1 apple and 1 bottle of water. What joy?!!!
We enquired with Suleyman, the train attendant regarding a cafeteria, he gestured something, said something and then offered us cay, so we sat, had some cay with Suleyman, not understanding each other but in fellowship together over a cup of tea.
Long later we reached Tatvan, and the city was enveloped in white. Like whooah, where's the blacktop mate? I ain't no longer dreaming of a white Xmas. The next adventure was finding a bus or dolmus (Turkey's variant of a mini bus, think Thailand and it's red song thaews) to Van. You see Tatvan and Van are separated on either side by the enormous Lake Van. We had at that point befriended a young kid who was on his way to Van too. A generous station officer dropped us off at the otogar, we checked with the bus companies there and nope, no luck, no more busses running to Van that evening but we could try for a dolmus further up the road. As we were leaving the otogar, this guy on his cellphone asked us where we were heading, we answered Van. He then beckoned us to follow him, whistled down a dolmus on the other side of the road and packed us in with instructions to the driver. At that point in time the dolmus was already sardine canned and we were left standing, keep in mind the ride to Van takes about 90 minutes. Throughout all of this though people were constantly smiling, trying to talk to us, them in their limited English and us in our limited Turkish. I'll also have you know we weren't even sure the dolmus was heading to Van at this point.
Soon enough the dolmus emptied out and we managed to get seats, there was a slightly elderly gentleman on the dolmus who made sure Gaelle and I got to sit together.
Suffice to say we did manage to get to Van at about 6.30pm, stuffed our faces with pide and kebab, contacted our couchsurfing host, Cesir, met him, talked for a bit and settled in for the night.
Van though that night was magical, with lights glinting off the snow and the warmth of its Kurdish folk. I couldn't have asked for more. Oh I forgot to add also that the kid we befriended in the istasyon invited us home with him. I declined mostly due to my own inhibitions but I hope he understands that I was grateful and humbled nonetheless.

The Green Tour & the 12km walk

As a rule of thumb, I am somewhat against taking organised tours through travel agencies but in this instance it was well played.

Our tour guide, Efe was well informed, funny and had a michevious sparkle in his eyes, all in good humour though. The tour started at 0930, ended at 1730, covering a distance of 220kms with a group of 14.

Places visited:
a. Goreme Panorama - for a full view of the city atop its highest point.
b. Pigeon Valley - as it's name suggests it was once a valley full of pigeons, evidence of their existence is still apparent through the pigeon houses but numbers have dwindled drastically.
c. Derinkuyu Underground City - for me the highlight of the tour. There is a 9km underground cave complex connecting Derinkuyu to Kaymaklir. We only went down up to level 8 and it's quite obvious there's a lot more to explore.
d. Ihlara Valley - a 4km walk across nature, beautiful scenery all throughout, tranquil too.
e. Selime Monastery - A church built into the rock formations with pristine frescoes still very obvious. Sadly it doesn't invoke a feeling of reverence anymore, maybe because any sacredness left has been eroded by tourism.
f. Artisanal Handicraft Centre - a handicraft centre where we were showed the different kinds of precious stones endemic to Turkey and no before anyone gets any ideas I did not buy any jewellery.

So that was yesterday and today, 15/12, we decided to take a walk in the valley on our own.  A walk turned out to be about 12kms in distance covering some beautiful canyons, churches and nature. A rather perfect day it was, we'll be leaving Goreme for Kayseri tomorrow, it will be bittersweet me thinks but memories of Goreme will stay for quite a while I'm sure.

Arriving Goreme. First impressions.

Je suis arrive Goreme yesterday evening 6.30ish pm. Since the past week, yesterday was the first time I got conned. Figured it was bound to happen but by golly it sucks. First the bus company said our bus was direct to Goreme but in reality it only got us to Nevsehir and then the cab ride to Goreme costs 60TL. Bugger that, it was 7 clicks at max. Suffice to say I wished the cabbie a happy reunion with his maker.

Got to Shoestring Hotel, got settled into the room with the jacuzzi and wowee I was sorted.

Got a tour planned for the morrow. Took a really nice long walk to the Goreme Open Air Museum today, brilliant churches built within caves though some of the artwork/ drawings leave much to be desired.

The walk in the valley was quiet, long. You and your thoughts in nature. The view was breathtaking throughout.

As usual I will allow your eyes to feast on them photos.

Konya, The Mevlana Festival & the whirling dervish

Konya was never high on my radar of must visits until Juana and I had a chit-chat. She explained that Konya was the birthplace of Rumi and the Maulavi sufi order, the Mevlana Festival was also taking place in December. I was sold, we were going.

Konya is an economic hub, reminded me lots of Singapore with its CBD's and rather boring flats. Every December though about 1mil people congregate here for the Mevlana Festival, I witnessed some of that million.

If you're a disciple of Sufism and Rumi, Konya will hold much appeal for you, me being neither if not for the spectacle of semah (the whirling dervish ritual) would find it perhaps a little hard to justify the visit.

The semah was a spectacle of color though, I have a feeling it is done in such a manner to hold attention. The ceremony begins with the head dervish walking out onto the floor followed by his deputy, then disciples. Next follows a worship session, then the whirling. The are 3 rounds of this whirling, followed by another prayer before it ends. Now the symbolism and meaning of semah I will allow you to research and read on your own.

The Mevlana Museum though I felt was a more worthwhile visit. It felt more reverential. The sarcophagus of Rumi, his son & family are all within the compound. There are also beautiful collections of calligraphy, Quran from revered scholars on display. The process of becoming a dervish was also well documented with dioramas.

All in all Konya to me was a quick pitsop. I will however say that I'm now intrigued enough to read more about Rumi, his way of life & teachings. On that account perhaps Konya did fulfill its purpose.