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Friday 2004-05-28 - Sanandaj, Iran
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!
