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Thursday 2004-05-27 - Takht-e Soleymān, Iran
Warm welcome in a Kurdish village
On the way to Sanandaj we make a visit to Takht-e Soleymān which has two attractions. One is “Suleiman’s prison” (Zendan-e Soleymān) — nothing to do with anyone’s prison but in reality an extinguished volcanic crater, and then the large citadel called (like the village) Takht-e Soleymān on top of the next mountain. Although the citadel is supposed to be very interesting, with an enclosed lake, most of us decide to skip it: we’ve seen so many citadels already! In-between the two mountains is the small Kurdish village named after the historical citadel (we’re still in Kurdish country here), to where a small group of us walk from the citadel.
First we drink tea at a tiny restaurant strategically located at the entrance of the village. We sit outside on the stoop, in the shade, and chat with a 14-year old boy helping out and the older owner (we never find out whether he’s the boy’s father or his granddad). There’s an old and very deaf grandma as well, and all three are willing subjects to have their photographs taken.
When we walk into the village, we don’t get very far - we’re almost immediately stopped by a woman who asks us to take her picture. She has a big smile with many gold teeth, and her husband, with a really beautiful old face, joins in the fun. We take many pictures of the couple. They even show us their passports (it seems they have to carry them!) with thumbprints and much younger pictures. Although we don’t share a word in any language, we manage to find out the couple have seven sons. They’re very nice and companionable together — I hope that will somehow be visible in the photographs!
Ten meters on we’re invited into a house where men are building an annexe — for the eldest daughter, it turns out later, who’s married to one of the men doing the building; she just had her first baby. Inside, we’re invited to drink tea, and watch the three daughters work on knotting a carpet stretched on a huge loom. It must take very long to make a carpet as big and intricate as they are making, even with three working on it. A little later, the men take a break from their building to have an early lunch (early for us, that is, but they probably started early in the day). We get a taste as well: flat, tasty bread, butter, yogurt, three kinds of cheese, all locally produced. And a little riddle is solved: we’d already often been served tea, with sugar for those who wanted is, but without a spoon to stir. That’s not the way they take their sugar here: the men take a sugar lump into their mouth, pour some of the tea from the glass into the dish, and drink it from there, ‘around’ the sugar. We also take many photographs of the family at their work.
Then the bus is hooting: it’s still a long way to Sanandaj; we never make it farther into the village.
Friday 2004-05-28 - Sanandaj, Iran
Problems
In an Internet cafe (“coffee net”) in Sanandaj, trying to send one item to the site, I’m getting into trouble. For some reason, my mail does not seem to arrive at all. This post is a test, really: if this doesn’t arrive either, I’m giving up for today.
“You are more precious than my eyes”
We head for the mosque first, of which we had a glimpse when we walked through Sanandaj last night to watch the people shopping: the streets were busy on a Thursday evening. But today it’s Friday so naturally most stores are closed and it’s very quiet. Behind the old mosque a new prayer hall is being built; Carla and I aren’t allowed in there (Thom tells us later it’s very beautiful), so the two of us head for the women’s prayer hall to the side. Since it’s Friday, prayers are in progress — one woman praying aloud for a group, all in a row closely together. Normally non-muslims aren’t allowed in during prayers but we’re welcomed warmly all the same: we’re waved in, smiled at, and several women bring one or two hands to their eyes: a symbolic greeting we later find out means something like “you are more precious than my eyes.” We sit down at the side for a while, and watch and listen to the proceedings quietly. After a while, one of the women spots Thom waiting outside and points to him; after we take our leave, several women even wave us goodbye from behind the windows.
Internet problems
After lunch in a pizza restaurant in Sanandaj (you’re supposed to put ketchup on a pizza in Iran but I prefer mine without…) we head for the area where most Internet cafes are (they’re called “coffee net” here). We’re hoping to find one that’s actually open on Friday since we found out yesterday most will be closed today. With the help of two young men who walk us half way there when we ask for directions, we do indeed find one. It turns out to be the hardest Internet access experience so far: Internet Explorer is intermittently taken over by casino and sex sites (sex dialers sit on the desk top as well) — and then after I finally manage to send an email I can’t see the result on the travel blog site. I suspect a proxy server is serving the first-retrieved page from a cache: no amount of clearing IE’s cache, history or forced reload makes any difference. I try several times but can’t find any other reason why my mail doesn’t appear. After three tries I give up and write a short note about the problems (which also doesn’t appear though it should) - hoping my first Internet experience in Iran isn’t predictive for the rest.
Reports that sex sites are all filtered out in Iran by state-controlled proxies are definitely missing something… it’s not hard to reach them at all — in this “coffee net” it’s hard to avoid them!
A learning experience
Because most of Iran is taken up by deserts and otherwise dry areas, greenery and parks are very precious to the Iranians. Everywhere we see little parks and green strips of well-tended grass along the road sides (or in the middle between lanes) where people sit with their study books or play a game of chess. Especially on a Friday evening, the many parks here in Sanandaj are alive with young people strolling, old people sitting and watching, families picnicking, barbecuing and playing, and sellers of corn roasted on charcoal doing good business.
We sit down at a table with an Iranian ‘beer’ (a non-alcoholic drink not really tasting like beer, but refreshing and not sweet like fresh drinks) and watch it all. A man and his daughter come crossing the road, heading for the kiosk where we bought our drinks; the girl stops and stays behind to watch us while her father goes on to buy a snack. She tries to talk to us, but of course we don’t understand Farsi — something that obviously amazes her. She never met people like that before. The girl, at a guess about 12 years old, keeps trying to make herself understood; when a few passing boys shout “Hello!” at us she picks up on that clue and tries “hello” as well — that works! Then she comes up with “I love you” which I answer with “I love you, too” — she’s a really lovable girl and trying so hard to communicate with more than just a smile! That exhausts her English though and she tries Farsi again. After some more failed attempts at communicating in that language she gives up and runs to her dad to tell of her experience. We see him listen to her, and obviously telling her to try some more but sensibly he stays in the background. The girl is still fascinated, and indeed comes back to us. Behind her big brown eyes her brain is visibly grinding … even the most simple sentences and words she tries, carefully enunciated for our benefit, are not understood. How can that be?
Suddenly I remember I happen to have a Lonely Planet in my bag so I take it out to see if it has something about Farsi. That works. Now she reads aloud the “common signs” written in Farsi, and together we can go over the counting words listed, and a few other words. As a result, one little girl in Iran has learned today that there are actually people who don’t understand Farsi (but can learn) and I have learned to say “goodbye” in Farsi. With a friendly (though not completely accurate) “Khodāfez!” we leave and walk back to our hotel.
Sunday 2004-05-30 - Kāshān, Iran
Dinner solves a misunderstanding
Unusually, our Iranian guide Showān had accompanied us for dinner in the Delpazir restaurant in Kāshān. After dinner, a conversation between him and our travel companion Marie Josee ensues (with Thom and me listening and sometimes prompting). Marie Josee, a very independent woman and capable travel companion, and Showān, a well-educated Iranian (but maybe raised somewhat traditionally) working as a guide to help finance his studies, had had a personality clash right from the first moment they met; now, they’re really talking for the first time, and Showān tells us what he’d wanted not to bother us with at first.
Just before we arrived in Iran, new rules set by the government required each group to be accompanied by a guide (we certainly hadn’t asked for one, and Marie Josee had actually wanted to “fire” him). His brief was that he was responsible for us, for our safety, and that we didn’t take any photographs of military objects. The problem is that we’re independent travellers, travelling ‘with’ a group rather than ‘in’ a group — something Showān had never encountered before, but the standard for the trips organized by Koning Aap Reizen (Monkey King Travels). It was already clear to us he always tried to stay with us and keep us together; at one time the group actually decided to get rid of him for once by splitting up and all go in different directions at the same time — unwittingly making Showān’s job very difficult for him. He actually had clear instructions (from the government, by proxy of his travel agency) to keep us together. Already on the very first evening, in Tabriz, he found this was impossible to do.
On the third day, so he tells us now, he’d called his boss to explain it was impossible to keep us together, but also that he found us really interested travellers and would like to stay with us. That evening, a meeting took place in Tehrān at the highest level: the minister of tourism, a man from the tourism bureau, and someone from the travel agency (Showān’s employer); the meeting lasted three hours. Finally, Showān did get ‘permission’ to ‘let us loose’ (not that he had any choice, but at least they’d acknowledged that); but he was told he’s still responsible for us not to photograph any military objects and for our safety (how is he going to handle that when we spread out over each city and town we visit?). The decision eased the situation for him only partly, and he’s still in a conundrum; if anything goes wrong, that will likely destroy his chance to go to abroad next year to continue his studies as he’s hoping to do: it’s not just his job on the line but his future as well.
On the other hand, not having encountered people before who travel like we do, he had decided to try an experiment to find out what it’s like: walk around a strange city, without help, without speaking the language, without even a map. In Sanandaj we’d encountered him together with driver Mohammed and assistant Ali, proudly telling us: “We do what you do!” We had no clue what he meant then but now it’s suddenly clear — and he confesses he actually didn’t manage to find the way back without help. Of course, that’s something you have to learn through practice but we’re impressed he actually tried this to get a feel for how we travel.
Showān also still has to report back where we are each day, and what we do — we have no problem with that — and Marie Josee has a solution: she’ll just give him the same photocopies with city information she gives us: that way he can ‘report’ without even trying to baby-sit us.
Of course in one conversation personalities and personal backgrounds don’t change. But at least now there’s a truce and mutual understanding. Showān has a difficult job to do, and his future is at stake as well…
