Me inside one of the two famous mosques which have 'Shaking Minarets.' Start shaking one, and the other begins to rotate...
"Can you feel it shake?" yells the driver. "Yeah buddy, I'm balanced on the top and there's a 20 metre drop..."Having completely given up on ever getting a visa for Iran, I got this SMS: "Vassily got in on his Aus passport. Visa on the door for €50! Great mosques, shit food, Persepolis is amazing!"
I get my bum on a plane, and discover:
1. Iranians are possibly the friendliest people in the world.
2. It may be the law, but there is some very non-serious head-covering going on there. "This bloody head scarf is driving me mad" I said to no one in particular when the thing fell off for the fifth time in 10 minutes on my first day spent 'covered.' "How do you think we feel???!!!" responded a young Iranian woman. This might explain why a lot of women wear the things halfway back on the head, perched so as to cover their pony-tail and not much else.
3. Iranians are very concerned that foreigners think well of them. I was asked every taxi ride, "Iran good? Iran bad?" (Amazingly, the Persian word for bad is bad, so, along with 'problem' and 'excellent' for which they use the Arabic, I know a total of 5 Farsi words - Woo Hoo!)
4. If they have even one word of English, Iranians use it to trash their government. Get: One old lady with whom I was sharing a taxi. She grabs me by the wrist (a very common precedent to any interaction with older women, I was to find). "Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad" she says insistently naming the Iranian President. "FOOLISH!" Having made her point she leaves the taxi triumphant.
BEST BIT OF IRAN
Esmat, Esmat's daughter Sarah, and Esmat's amazing food: The recipe for Berian, an Esfahani mint and cinnamon beef burger can be found at the bottom of this post.
Me, Esmat and Pistachio-Covered Sohan.
The final Berian product. Yummo!
Mirror Rooms: 200 years ago there was a fashion in decorating one room off one of many of the family courtyards with mirror mosaics, and they are absolutely beautiful except for a modern shrine in Shiraz which was like a multi-coloured, disco-ball cathedral...
This way to Fairy Land. Mirror Rooms in Private Houses in Yazd & Kashan
The Khans: Have you noticed that every time you read something about Genghis Khan and relatives, the words 'marauding' and 'hordes' are always used? 'Razed' is another frequent one, especially in relation to cities.
Well the Genghis did in fact go a-marauding in Iran in the early 13th century and the family tradition was continued into the 14th century, but with a big difference. The latter Khans built rather than destroyed. Poor old Genghis must have been turning in his grave (in Mongolia, where, fortunately, he had returned to die).
Khan Fortifications above Esfahan
Azi pestered the guide to let us go upstairs of this shrine (early 14th century, Khan regime). "No. It is forbidden." "Sir, I studied the history of this period 20 years ago and seeing this is a dream come true." "Ok, you can go up, but don't go near the edges where you might be seen. It is forbidden." I swear I'm becoming like Nanna as I age.
My favourite Islamic religious building ever. The Shrine of Pir Bikram, built at the height of the Khan regime, over a the tomb of a sufi mystic. In the last photo you see the Koran (or maybe the 100 names of the Prophet) in early Kufic script.
Pidgeon Poo: Telephone Conversation, Circa 1989, Sydney University, 2 weeks before the Final Exam: Simone calls her lecturer.
Simone: Dr Pryor, I don't understand the Turks!
Dr Prayor: Which Turks Simone?
Simone (wail): All of them!
Dr P: Go and get drunk, Simone
This was no doubt good advice at the time because there were a LOT of Turks and the two weeks before the Final Exams was not a good time to try and sort them all out but I feel now I've made a start because driving out of Esfahan the country is covered with Seljuk (Turks!) remains and (indistinguishable except by their shape) pidgeon poo collectors. Yes people. Houses for Pidgeons. Receptacles for collecting their poo, which is then used as fertilizer - even today.
Pidgeon Poo Houses, up close and in the fields.
Finally, Persepolis: This is the House that Darius built (about 500BC). Darius the Great that is. Just for greeting foreign dignitaries. And only at New Year... Until Alexander the Great came and burnt it down. Damn!
And this is one of my favourite people from the time of the 'Persians' or Achaemenids - the second of three groups of Arayans (= Iranians), Kartir. He made sure his image was carved around Darius' grave and in other high profile places with a note to the effect that his name was on SO many important religious documents, that he thought he'd REALLY better let everyone know who was. I don't think that awareness was such an issue, myself. One of the early fundamentalists, he was out there persecuting everyone in sight...
Kartir sorting out what is what.
AND THE 'INTERESTING STUFF'...
The Great Leaders: By law, every office, room, corridor has to have picture of the old Ayatollah Khomeini, and/or the new religious leader. They even put pictures on the bloody mountains!!! In a country which was on the cutting edge of governmental systems 2000 years ago, and with such an awesome standard of education, this medieval use of imagery is the tiniest bit offensive:
Tea on Tap: Despite the massive percentage of people of Turkish ethnic origin in Iran, the coffee and tea there are rubbish. On the other hand, it's hot and there's lots of it. Everywhere...
Me at roadside Truckee Tea Urn
Taxi Driver with Tea.
Bus Driver with Tea.
Toilet Trips: I think I may be the first ever passenger to have forced an Iranian inter-city coach to stop for a pee by the side of the road. Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi! Oi! Oi!
I'm on a 3-4 hour trip and suddenly, 1 hour in, I realise I've got to go.
Request is transmitted to bus driver (the guy with the tea above) and in answer he gestures out the window. Yep. No towns. No toilets. No bloody trees.
Shit.
Since an op a few years ago I can't actually hang on. And I'm thinking, oh god, how am I going to extricate myself from what will surely be utter humiliation.
Guy across aisle notices my distress. Little chats with the driver and suddenly I'm being escorted out of the bus by a lovely young woman sitting next to me, who has been given a jug of water, a cup, and a tissue. Outside is mountainous desert, but there's a tunnel under the road where I pee in private, and meet up back with her, full of gratitude and relief.
"It is a memory" she says.
Lost in Translation: Lots of Persian (Farsi) words have entered English because of the spice & other trading routes, but in a confused sort of way. I found these by asking: 'Pear' is from Farsi, but means 'quince.' 'Orange' is from Farsi but means 'lemon.' Before you decide that the translators involved had had too much grape juice, get a load of this. That orange thing in the picture below, beside the yellow lemon, IS a lemon. Promise!
Pick the lemon.
I tell Azi about the toilet trip. She says she's the same (I get polite). But when we're out and can't find a toilet she rings a private doorbell to ask them if we can use the loo. A lady comes out in clutching chador to her chin and let's us in. Her house has mirrors in the walls! Rural suburbia catches up with the Joneses 200 years on. But if it were really 200 years ago and pre-Intercom, we would've used the women's door knocker to let her know to come out and greet us, rather than the men's, which was a different shape and therefore knocked a different tone.
Azi holding up the 'girls' door knocker, which brings women, rather than men to answer the door. You can see the differently shaped 'guys' doorknock on the left.
I do hope this washing powder manufacturer gets marketing advice should it ever decide to go international...
Get these beetroot!!!
Foil Milk Bottletops. Woo Hoo!.
Simone, covered, AND in ChadorWhen is covered not covered? My last day in Iran. I know I have to cover so I do. Hell. I live here. I know what covered means... I tuck every last bit of hair into my woolen beanie (cap). I put a headscarf on top of that, and turn my collar up so my neck is covered. I wear a 'tent coat' which falls from my hairline, to my fingers and to my ankles.
I'm refused entry. I'm not Muslim. Fair enough. Smile vaguely. Step back. Take some photos.
Then I'm given a chador, and invited in. "No, no,' I say. "I'm not Muslim." "No problem." Apparently they've decided I'm respectable. What?
I wrap myself in the thing as best I can, which is not very well, since the black and white floral material is only a couple of metres long (photo above) and in I go...
Not feeling good. Ask a woman at the entrance to the women's section of the shrine. May I go in? It's 'yes' again. I slide around the walls, carefully stepping behind women who are praying and, in some cases, moaning and crying at the walls. Shi'ites. Please excuse my ignorance but the only thing I know about Shi'ites apart from the original split with the Sunnis is that mourning is very important (there are many days off to mourn various religious figures) and so, therefore, are shrines.
And what a shrine I'm in. Imagine the biggest gothic cathedral you've ever been into, with naves and smaller chapels going off in every direction. Now imagine that the walls and ceilings of this cathedral are entirely covered with tiny mirror mosaic tiles in silver, gold, red blue and yellow. Yep. OTT. Dazzling. Overwhelming.
So I leave, giving my ticket back in at the door to collect my shoes. And I'm asked again. Are you Muslim? No. "Go away" the young woman says, but only because she doesn't know the words for 'Get the fuck out of here.'
And was I glad to leave. The shrine. The country. I miss Arabs when they're not around.
Hope you're well. Hope you don't know anyone whose houses or worse were part of those bushfires.
Simone
How to make Berian:
Esmat & Sarah make their Internet debut cooking Berian!Instructions - this is so easy!
1. Cook enough beef to make a burger by simmeringly gently until cooked in water, salt and pepper.
2. Mince/shred the cooked beef.
3. Chop up a handful (small bunch) of mint, and mix it with the minced beef.
4. In a small frypan, add (quite a lot of) sunflower oil.
5. Add a good sprinkling (a tablespoon? more?) of ground cinnamon to the oil.
6. Fry the burger, pressing the meat to the sides of the pan. Sprinkle another tablespoon of cinnamon on top.
7. Serve (with more ground cinnamon) in bread, with a side of bitter green leaves (basil rocket, radish), and a squeeze of lemon (optional).
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