Words from Iran
5th January 2020
Last November, walking briskly by the bookshop on the open concourse at the British Museum, I randomly spotted a book titled ‘Persian Love Poetry’. I stopped, picked it up, opened to a page and read a simple 2 line poem from Hafez…
I instantly felt a little tingle in my heart. I flicked to the book’s preface and read the following lines from the German poet Goethe (who was very much influenced by Persian poetry and philosophy):
He who wants to understand the art of poetry,
Must go to the land of poetry.
He who wants to understand the poet,
Must go to the poet’s country.
I emailed my agents informing them I’m taking December off and booked a cheap one-way flight to Shiraz, Iran, the hometown and final resting place of Hafez.
The only whimsical plan was to visit Hafez’s tomb in Shiraz. And travel spontaneously for the rest of the month.
The cheapest way to get to Iran in early December is via Dubai. I decided to spend a few days in Dubai before Iran. I met up with my friend and filmmaker George Tsikos who also helped me with a last minute self-tape audition (literally last minute). I’ve done self-tapes everywhere and anywhere: from remote monasteries in the Korean mountains to kinky bathrooms in cheap love motels (great for acoustics) to George’s 20th floor production office. Anyway, I digress.
The 3 nights in Dubai, I dreamt vividly I was in an Edward Hopper painting. Serious. I think what triggered these strange dreams was finishing the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau. My friend Ingrid Wheatley recommended I read Walden before visiting her in Boston in 2020. And reading Walden in Dubai… Jesus… it was going very against the grain (which I liked). It awakened something. Reading Thoreau’s rant against materialism and modernity in a modern environment of mass consumerism and opulence jolted my mind. And the dreams ceased when I left.
Arriving at Shiraz international airport, I was a little nervous applying for the ‘Visa on Arrival’ because I had no return flight and no insurance (requirements when arriving in Iran). I imagined telling Iranian Immigration: “I booked the one-way trip on the spur of the moment with no preparation because of a few lines of poetry from one of your great writers”.
Anyway..
At Dubai airport the Air Arabia check-in asked me:
“Where’s your return ticket?”
I told him:
“I’m taking a train from Tehran to Istanbul.”
He let me board the plane.
Phew.
The immigration officer processing my visa at Shiraz airport asked:
“Where’s your insurance?”
I showed him a one page print out of an insurance policy I downloaded that didn’t include Iran. (I was thinking: ‘fuck it, if they don’t let me in, I’ll go to Turkey’).
He gave me the visa.
Phew.
European atm cards are not accepted in Iran (sanctions). So I brought US dollar cash and a money belt. Google said Iranian rial was 40,000 for 1 USD. When I arrived at Shiraz airport it was 130,000 for 1 USD. The currency tripled in a year (sanctions). Good for me, bad for Iranians, everything 3 times cheaper. And it felt strange with a large sum of American dollars strapped close to my privates for a whole month.
At the immigration in Shiraz, I met Sue, an Australian, and Winny and York, a Taiwanese/Australian couple. We were on the same flight. We took the metro from the airport together; many locals chatted with us on the train and took selfies. And I thought: I’m only in Iran one hour. This is one of the joys of solo travelling; how rapidly and naturally you connect with fellow backpackers and locals.
The following day, Sue, Winny, York and I got a taxi to Persepolis. Alexander The Great burned this place down in 480 BC. But we rented 3D tour glasses to see 480 BC again. I walked around fast; worried I’d get sunburnt and dehydrated, even in December.
The third day I finally visited Hafez’s tomb, alone. It was raining, so more peaceful there. There was an elderly man standing by the tomb quietly reading poems. I stood across from him, tried to make the moment meaningful, wrote in my diary, and then took a clichéd photo.
That afternoon, the rain stopped. Winny, York and I went on a walking tour with a very interesting Reformist guide who knows how to access the internet when the government shuts it down. The tour was very informative, visiting mosques, bazaars and a synagogue! (the Iranian Jews I met feel very safe, respected and are represented in Iranian parliament).
Interestingly, my favourite part of the tour was the talk about the orange trees and leaves we walked by, where we picked, folded and inhaled their punchy vivid refreshing unforgettable scent. An appreciation for this little moment, must have been inspired by Thoreau’s nature writing.
My last day and late lunch in Shiraz was alone. It was a very quiet restaurant. The shy waitress and I (feeling kind of shy also) ended up chatting a lot. I asked her many questions, she ask me many questions, including why I visited Iran. When we said goodbye, in a humble and unassuming manner she said: “Please tell your people that our country is safe.” I so wanted to hug her. I so wanted to. But I didn’t. So I left Shiraz, still reflecting on Hafez poetry, and the waitress.
I took a 6 hour bus ride to Yazd, a desert town, on the Silk Road route. I met some Czech and Hungarian travellers on the rooftop of an art café built in the traditional mud brick houses. The Czech couple with their 4 year old daughter were hitchhiking. They said hitchhiking with a 4 year old greatly increases the chances of more cars stopping. Ha! Winny and York arrived in Yazd a few days later and we took a quick trip to the desert. Next day we took a bus to Isfahan.
There are many Unesco world heritage sites in Iran. But being a tourist among a heap of other tourists, and everyone franticly taking the same photos sometimes made sightseeing feel banal, dull, absurd, even ridiculous. Not one of us could just sit down, relax and contemplate with what’s really there. Take photo, take photo, take photo. Get on bus, go back to hotel. Upload photo, upload photo, upload photo.
What felt more authentic for me was just strolling around the non-tourist areas or sitting in parks or cafés, watching the world go by. Like a flâneur! A flâneur is the 1800’s French name for: ‘a man who saunters around observing society’. Let me modify: ‘a man who saunters around observing society, not using his phone.’
When you’re truly flâneur-ing (no phone, no book, no alcohol to distract), you occasionally experience the best impressions and meditations. I was feeling this for 2 minutes at Isfahan Main Square one day, until an elderly man approached me, lectured me fast on the history of Isfahan, and then spent 20 minutes trying to sell me Persian rugs. (Like Thoreau, maybe my next trip should be in a cabin in the woods.)
Nobody flâneurs anymore, except me.. until I nearly fucking died!, crossing the road one day when a motorbike missed me by a millisecond. The traffic in Iran is insane. Motorbikes drive down footpaths and against the incoming traffic. Pedestrians look totally relaxed crossing 6 lane city highways, they don’t speed up their walk and the traffic doesn’t slow down. There’s an art to judging a moving car/pedestrian proximity. I never mastered it; I was always in fright mode running across the street like a gazelle.
Architecture in Isfahan was impressive. But the highpoint in Isfahan, maybe Iran, was dinner with a local family at their home. Winny sold a car to an Iranian in Adelaide. She told him she’s travelling to Iran. He told her that she has to meet his family in Isfahan; the family also invited me for dinner. The grandparents, uncles, aunts, in-laws and kids were there. Such great company, great conversations, lots of laughs, no alcohol needed, and the food dishes were unbelievably delicious. We brought some local sweets (gaz), which seemed so meagre compared to the amazing desserts the family prepared. I’m not a food connoisseur to come up with the proper vocabulary to describe how amazing the dinner and desserts were.
I think it was Don Juan who said: “There comes a time in a man’s life where food is more desirable than a woman”. I now comprehend.
After Isfahan, we took the bus north to Kashan. That felt kind of like another country. Saw another Unesco world heritage site, I think. Also the market there was the most genuine bazaar I’ve ever been to. No tourists, only the three of us, maybe that’s why it felt authentic. Everyone stared at us though, that for a second I thought they’d kidnap us…
And then realized that I watch too many movies and fear-mongering news to make me think this.
Another great flâneur moment was sitting on the roofs of the traditional houses in Keshan at dusk, having a coffee, listening to the Muslim call to prayer playing across the town… The pleasures of ordinary life, I need to say that in French: joie de vivre.
I’ve no idea what’s being sung during the Muslim call to prayer (4 times a day) but it’s entrancing, especially at dusk, an ambient ephemeral tranquility in the evening air. The transient evening light which Turner and Monet would try to recapture in their paintings. And the first star appears, then a few more, and then we go for dinner.
I woke up few times at 5am with the call to prayer also, just before the dawn. My sleep wasn’t the best on this trip.
Persian food always surprised me. Every day I relished tasting the walnuts, fruits and sweets in the markets and bazaars. And seeing the array of spices and the bygone mills that grounds them.
Many mornings and evenings I’d drop by to the small local bakeries for freshly warm baked Persian flatbread. The bakers sometimes invited me inside to watch the kneading and baking. Then they’d offer me the bread for free. I got so humbled on this trip.
When I got to Tehran – a priority was to visit the National Cinema Museum. Being a film buff, after all the brilliant Iranian films I’ve seen, I was looking forward to this more than any museum, mosque or architecture. But I was a little disappointed. They only displayed lots of award statues, posters and pictures of Iranian filmmakers, but no viewing platforms or mediatheque (like Bfi) to show their excellent films or even clips from the films. Having a coffee there (a lovely 19th century building in a very affluent area in northern Tehran) was pleasant but then, unexpectedly, a loneliness hit me. I realised I was also starting to use my phone too regularly, a trigger reaction when you’re starting to feel lonely. But also the locals in this affluent area were not as sociable with me as people were in the countryside and smaller towns. It reminded me of Dubai. Money and materialism isolates us. So, I deliberately put the phone away and made myself observe, contemplate, bring the flâneur back…
Iranians are very attractive people. The women and the men. One day on the metro in Tehran, I felt like a casting director, I couldn’t stop observing a 30-something year old man. He looked so pensive and preoccupied; he had this pondering look, the meditative gaze like John Mills in the film Ice Cold In Alex. His face was so photogenic, it would look amazing on cinema screen, in a cowboy western.
Many beautiful Iranian women have a more demure, reserved personality, enigmatic, they’re probably unaware of it. Quite different from the western deportment. Their hijab is worn more freely than in other Islamic countries. In cafés during conversations, I’d notice the hijab would languidly slip back from the forehead to the crown area or hair bun, and then the lady would re-cover. Sometimes only a few centimeters of that hijab slowly moving back would captivate me. Hafez probably wrote some poetry about this.
On the monotonous 6 hour bus journey from Shiraz to Yazd I tried, very indiscreetly, to take a photo of a lady sitting in front of me because of her radiant blue eyes on her olive skin, she looked saintly. Her eyebrows were perfect. She had a tiny bit of mascara on to compliment. I repeat: radiant blue eyes on olive dark skin. During this furtive take photo attempt, this venture you could say, an Afghan family were sitting beside and behind me, the father in the seat next to me and his son sometimes on his lap. They wanted to talk, even with no English words. So with our made-up sign language, I opened the maps app on my phone and they indicated where they were from in Afghanistan. I think they were refugees, and arrived in Iran a few years ago. I also think they’d never seen a westerner before because they stared at me so much (father and son) during the 6 hour trip. What a peculiar moment: the Afghan father and son occasionally overtly staring at me, and I occasionally covertly staring at the lady, in front, with luminous blue eyes, flawless eyebrows and olive skin tone. Or maybe she had green eyes..now I don’t know. As Tennessee Williams said: “you can’t describe someone you’re falling in love with”.
Anyway I just had to take a photo, I could have asked her, but instead I pretended I was reading something on my phone, then clicked the photo button and… and… the fucking flash went off by mistake!! DOH! This was the moment where she, and the Afghan family, probably became fascinated with my face, seeing it change from a pale white to a burning red in 2 seconds.
Cosmetic surgery is surprisingly very popular in Iran. The amount of nose job and hair transplant bandages I saw. First day I thought they were bandages from accidents from the insane motor-bikers on the pavement. But I later learnt that nose jobs especially are seen as prosperity, so some even wear a bandage without surgery to pretend they’re rich. There’s a saying in Iran: ‘When a man gets wealthy, he renovates his wife’s face before his house’.
Everyone wanted to add me to Instagram. When I told them I’m not on social media, some looked at me mildly shocked. And here’s the paradox: what oppresses me is freedom of expression for Iranians. Fb, Youtube, bbc news and alcohol are prohibited in Iran, and this gave me a sense of liberation, not needing any of them. I tried to explain this to some liberal Iranians but I understood their point of view also.
My last journey was a random last minute flight back down south to Bandar Abbas to Hormuz Island, that the family in Isfahan highly recommended I visit. On the flight, a middle-aged stout truck driver sat beside me and took up half my seat. Even with no English he started a conversation. He was intrigued with the Klaus Haapaniemi cover illustration on the book I had (Short stories by Nikolai Leskov). I initially thought this is a ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ moment when John Candy meets Steve Martin. But the truck driver was as engagingly eccentric as the 1800’s Russian characters in my book. Even with the language barrier, we chatted quite a bit. He flew around Iran to collect and drive freight trucks back to Tehran. He guided me all the way to the taxi rank at Bandar Abbas airport and made sure I was safe and sound. We shook hands and it felt strangely poignant that I’ll never see him again. And then I thought what if he met the Czech backpackers hitchhiking! He seemed to love any company, being a lonely truck driver.
The landscape and geology on Hormuz is like Mars. It took me a few hours to find my hostel in a village, which felt like a North African village. No signs, no street numbers, no street names, just a desert village on a desert island. I spent the rest of the day on a motorbike venturing around the island. Walked into a restaurant alone that evening and was invited to join locals and backpackers. And then a guest wanted to pay for my dinner. What can I say. In my 20 years of backpacking: Iranians are the friendliest and most hospitable people I’ve met. It felt kind of ‘out of this world’.
I wondered if I wasn’t a tourist, just a neighbour living across the street, would they be as hospitable.. Ehm…
Or the moment I walk out the door, the family start arguing about all the food that was wasted on the ungrateful meagre tourist.
It’s funny how my romanticism can flip to cynicism so fast by just thinking ‘what if’. A flare for the dramatic.
I met a beautiful lady, Mary, from Tehran on Hormuz island. We met up again back in Tehran just before my departure. Such an interesting life, she writes for a European feminist magazine under a pseudonym. She’s divorced, very liberal, open-minded and a self-confessed rebel (I guess ‘Mary’ is also not her birth name..). She’s more rebellious and liberal than most people I know back in the western world, who, in Thoreau’s words, ‘contract themselves into a nutshell of civility’. Mary refused to contract herself.
Anyway, those two lines from Hafez that inspired me to taking this trip, ironically I’ve forgotten what they are now. Shall I go find them again.. or let the them go?
Let them go, discover more poetry, and more orange tree leaves.
The Musing Traveller
Iran photos here: trevwanderlust.com/iran
More writing
Words from Mexico (March 2021)
Words from Iran (January 2020)
Click for Words from Myanmar (January 2018)
Click for Words from Russia (July 2013)
Click for Words from Mongolia (August 2013)
Click for Words from China (August 2013)