Iran Day 1

Day 1 - 10th November 2018



The official start off was at 10:30pm on the 9th November 2018, at Suvarnabhumi airport where Adrian met us. The red eye flight on Emirates through Dubai and finally to Tehran took approximately seven and a half hours, 90% of which I was lucky to be able to sleep through, this arriving in Tehran at 9:35am (4.5 hours behind Singapore time) nice and fresh.

The VIDEO

Tehran


We touched down on the morning of 10th November. I secretly laughed inside myself as I saw our female travel mates scrambling to don their scarves as the plane landed. It was mandatory, of course, for ladies to be on headscarves in Islamic Iran. Most had difficulty keeping their rear halves of their scalps legally covered, but eventually they all gotten the hang of it.

Iran was surprisingly clean and well-maintained. That was the very first impression I got when I first caught sight of the streets outside the international airport. Traffic was smooth and the roads were not rubbish-cluttered, contrary to what I expected.

The parts of Tehran our coach took us through, though we had no chance to pass by the more modern sections of the capital, consisted of mostly low buildings.

There were several very interesting observations that I made:

• Cars were mostly black or white.
• Motorcyclists were mostly un-helmeted.
• And on the street, I saw mostly men and very few women.

The Aryan stock features of the Iranians were so distinct. I knew I had set foot in a part of the world whose people I’d almost never had contact with. Suddenly I was inundated by dark haired, thick-bushy-eyebrowed, sharp nosed good looking Iranian men with their five o’clock stubbles.

Scattered among the pedestrians were some really exotic looking women with their blonde hairs barely legally peeping from under their scarfs.

“Modern Iranian ladies wear their scarf very loosely and elegantly. The modern ladies are very fashionable in Iran one,” Adrian was once again most reassuring.

“What will happen if a lady walks out without the headscarf,” asked Fann later on of the lady boss in a restaurant.

“Oh, she will mostly be asked by the police to quickly put on her scarf,” came the very light-hearted reply.

Local travel insurance and visa application


After the western world’s good friend Donald Trump’s unilateral sanctioning of Iranian oil export, many insurance companies declined to cover Iran. So we simply just arrived at Tehran airport and bought a local travel insurance for €14 and paid €75 for our visa (Indonesians pay only €50 and Malaysians only needed to foot out $10 ringgit for the same piece of paper!).

“We are very lucky this time round,” said Adrian. “We applies for E visa and that saved us having to wait 45 mins to one hour to queue up outside to have it stamped.”

Indeed, most everything was lubricated.



Weather


Iran’s weather forecast was from about 8-9 degrees at night to about 16-17 degrees at the highest. But something in the Iranian climate was actually making it not as cold as the figures indicated. I was sweating with my t shirt and my thing vest.

“I think we over-estimated the coldness of Iran,” remarked Fann. Over the course of the next two days I concurred with her.

It could get a little chilly at night but nothing that one could not bear with a long sleeve dry fit shirt. Somehow the coldness of Iran wasn’t like Korea. We thought Iran’s coldness was merely this- sup sup water lah.

But from Day 3 onwards I was glad I had my thicker outer layer, my down middle layer, my middle vest and my base layers for the top and bottom, and especially so my hand gloves for it got really cold when we went up the mountain at 2800m and also when we went to the desert caravanserai in Varzaneh.



Golestan Palace

[Photo: Serene]

Adrian never failed to make us hit the ground hard running our guts out. First stop- Golestan Palace. This was where they hosted the dignitaries and now house relics and gifts from various countries in the world from the past.

[Photo: Serene]

What wasn’t new was Serene and I had absolutely no lingam when we arrived at Golestan. It had a lovely landscaped garden and the interior was blinking with mirrored walls and chandeliers and portraitures, busts and wax figures of the old King.

Serene's favourite position to take photos.

“I forgot how to take photos already!” kao-behed Serene. And a crash course ensued. But luckily she had good foundation and within half an hour she was happily snapping away, even sitting on the carpetted floor.

Photo: Adrian Loh Thien-Hock

Golestan Palace was a race of movement blur as I tried to recollect this historical monument.

From Tehran to Kashan

Pee break. But this David hor.. he just couldn't keep his hands off Magnum ice creams.

Kashan

The ubiquitous kebab throughout Iran.

Unbelievable.  Iran beer in Iran? Non-alcoholic, though.

We had a very delicious lunch with lamb, chicken and long-grain rice with non-alcoholic Iranian beer. I struggled to keep awake on the three hour journey southwards to a small town called Kashan where we spent the next two nights in a hotel called Mahinestan Raheb, converted from an old huge Persian mansion.

Walking to Mahinestan Raheb Hotel SgTrekker style.

Group photo lobby of Mahinestan Raheb. [Photo: Adrian Loh Thien-Hock]

I loved the place at first sight. It was simply so Persian. Nowhere have I ever seen anything like this.

The interior of Mahinestan Raheb

The Persians were really people who were very cultured in the art of perfume making and the aroma the pervaded the hotel was something so unique that I almost felt like I was transported into a Mission Impossible movie location somewhere in an exotically middle eastern town.

Walking to buy SIM card and for dinner.

“Can you believe it? Right this moment, this day, we are standing right on the soil of Iran!” I said out loud to Serene and Fann.

One of the very generous stall keepers who offered us the free lavash.

Kathy Neo really loved her lavash.

As we walked to our restaurant, a very friendly bakery stall boss and his assistant shouted out to us, welcoming us warmly and offered us many many pieces of freshly-baked lavash, a kind of thin crust parpadom-like pastry. He kept pushing to us generously without asking for anything. And we were taken aback by his genuine hospitality.

So was Fann. She was totally delighted by the generosity of the man.

Another sumptuous buffet dinner of lamb, chicken, egg plants and out of this world tasting dishes. I had triple servings of proteins from the delicious lambs.

Rose water distillation demo post-dinner.

Money changing, anyone?

Such a thick wad of cash we didn't know how to keep them.

Well, there are many changers and there are money changers. To make things a little simpler and perhaps slightly to our advantage, our guide Mohammad had a huge envelop of thick wads of Iranian rials to change with our USD and EUR.
At this point in time, the non-board Mohammad Forex Pte Ltd rate was USD$1 to 120,000 rials and EUR€1 to 130,000 rials.
Adrian’s memory serves him well as he recalled the official and blackmarket rate previously was US$1 to 40,000 rials only.

But one thing about this black market money changing was, the rate varies quite widely. Two days later Mohammad’s rates for the euro was €1 to 120,000 rials, a drop of close to ten percent.



SIM card, everybody?


Our guide Mohammad must have known how we Singaporeans desperately needed our connections with the world. And 350,000 rial (S$4 or there about) gave each of us a 3Gb of data access. Surprisingly affordable.



An early night’s rest was what everyone really needed. And I believed most of us hit the pillows concussed.


Click here to go back to main content page: Discovering the Spirit of Iran