Teheran & Isfahan

Left Mako at evening and arrived Teheran at 6 a.m. I think Iranian buses are a bit worse than Turkish, but they has given us some pastries in each one. The bus ticket is really cheap, around 1euro for every 100km. or so. Every day becomes harder and harder to communicate with english, but as long as we don't do anything outraging or ask simple things, we won't have communication problems.

Arrived at Teheran earlier than we expected, that's an inconvenience. As soon as we step out of the bus half a dozen taxi drivers jumped on us. I should not be smiling all the time, I just try to be polite but it's hard to get them off being polite. Entered to the northern bus station at Teheran and soon discovered that, if we want to go to Isfahan, heading south, we must go to the southern bus station (Junabaun or something like that, sounds like 'Junab terminal'). A couple of funny things there were the information sign, pointing the opposite direction where it was placed the information desk (although you can arrive to it just completing the full circle of the station), and the street-fighter class you have to endure on the station toilettes. Let's put something clear, bus stations at Turkey and Iran are huge, which means full of buses, which means plenty of persons. Crowds. After a 15hours trip, the most common act is visiting the WC, I needed 20 minutes from the entrance to it to the closed.

After that we decided to go 'Junab' and buy an evening ticket to Isfahan. Teheran is a big city, if you know subway stations emplacements, transport could be cheap, but if you feel dizzy from a long trip and have no map and idea, you probably will have to pay 6$ for a taxi.

On South Station we met a language teacher. Wonderful! Someone who speaks english! He helped us to get the ticket to Isfahan, then took us to Sha-he-Rey subway station and find a taxi driver that will lead us through some major places in Teheran for 24$. At this point I have to say that there are two kind of persons, the ones that pleasently will be helpful, and the ones that are there to get profit from tourists. All of them will be polite, but just consider that some are polite for the $.

We spent the morning with Aman Fatir (or something like that) who took us to an old fortress, an ancient fountain, a medieval tower (Toghrol!! I remember the name!!!) and an ancient ruin, hold by 4 young soldiers whom invited us to drink tea with them. This last one was named Fire Temple (it's easier to remember english names than farsi). The ruins were discovered by a french arecheologist at 1901, but they are not well conserved. Oh! And I forgot to mention we also visited the Imam Khameni tomb. Awfully, in some of these places we were not allowed to take pictures with the camera, although, if we had, we could use our cell phone to take pictures...kinda strange.

After these few visits which took us some hours we went to lunch with our beloved driver (who probably took his best meal of the month). Then he took us to a car garage repair, because he was having some problems with the motor. We end our tour a couple hours before we expected, and Ferran thought it could be a good idea to visit the Jewel Museum, we tried get information from the info desk, with no good results, then headed out of the bus station to get a taxi, and just a moment before getting into it we realized that the museum was not open on wednesday.
On the other hand when we got back to the station, full of shops, and after asking in 3 book shops, we found a Iran Lonely Planet!!!

Got out backpacks and step into the bus to go Isfahan. 17:30h. Ferran sit on the left side seats, because they have a bit more of leg space. I went with him after a couple hours when a full covered woman politely asked me if I can move (or so I thought), since they can not sit with men at buses (other than her husband).

During our night journey to the south we enjoyed road shops beside the highway. They hang billions of lights and leds, the next one of a crazier colour than the previous, they were so bright and bizarre that were close to be a harmful sight.

Arrived at Isfahan at 24:30, we have been bus travelling for 2.500km or so, and were exhausted for not saying destroyed. We were a junk piece for the taxi tiger drivers who again jumped on us. Accepted the first price to get us to the city center and also accepted the first price the guest house gave us. Bad move and worse one. Is not much a difference, maybe 10$, but I'm pretty sure we could have got a way better price for the 'nice' room we got. No complains about the water on the showers, was hot.

At 10:00 this morning we started our street trip. I still felt a bit confused about directions, more even counting that most of them are written only in farsi. At the end we got through it and wandered into the bazaar to Jameh Mosque. This side of the city is not as touristic as others could be, and the shops display a bit of abandon. Afther that we moved to Imam Square, probably the most famous and beautiful place in Isfahan. On the center of it there is a watered garden, surrounding it you can find roof covered shops, selling carpets, handcraft items, paintings, et cetera. Also, at the sides of the square you can find 2 mosques, the impressive Imam mosque and the, not so huge, but more beautiful, Sheikh Lotfollah; on the opposite side where this little but precious mosque is set, there is the Ali Gate palace. It's not in the best conservation state, but offers a great view of the square below and the mosques around.

We ate on a restaurant terrace, over a carpet with pillows, one of the iranian traditional ways.
Our meals mainly consisting in rice and chicken or beef. We walked some more time after the lunch around the square, found an iranian carpet seller whose girlfriend is from Barcelona, and crossed words with a couple more. Head our way to a caffenet called the Rose from which I'm writting this now. There are a couple tours that we could take but I'm not sure we will dispose of so much time, more even counting that we received an ultimatum from our 'friend' Dillan, he is rejecting our visas numbers today...hmmm...I'm feeling half well half bad. The visa tramitation is a complete rip off. Well, I guess they won't spend any efford finding us around their country, although maybe we will have some problems next time entering it. Oh lala! Time will way, as always does.

Best wishes,