Travelling to Iran Part One

An eyewitness report from 12-28th Oct 2000.

Introduction
Four of my friends, two girls and two boys, and I decided that Iran would be and interesting destination for our next holiday. The target was to travel with our rucksack and use public transportation to get around. Due to the weather the trip was postponed to October instead of august. This gave us a reduction of the temperature of 10-15 degrees Celsius, weather close to at good Danish summer. We had all kind of not so positive pictures of everyday life in Iran before we went, blended with horror stories about the Custom clearance: But you can read more about that below.

Preparations
Airline tickets, we flew with Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then to Tehran and we flew with Austrian Airlines via Vienna back to Copenhagen. I must say that I was a bit disappointed with LH, sitting in the rear of the A340 there was almost one hour between the food was served and beverage coming. Flying to Frankfurt can not be recommended right now, since there's huge air congestion and your fight will almost certainly be delayed. We almost lost our connecting flight due to this.
On the itinerary it was stated that you should reconfirm you tickets at least 72 hours before departure. We couldn't do it since the Austrian Airlines phone number was impossible to get. So if you are keen on reconfirming your tickets, contact the Airline bureau in the airport when you arrive and get the right number. We did not have to pay any extra airport tax upon departure.

Customs
As mentioned above, we had our fears about this instance. But to tell the truth there wasn't the slightest problem neither on arrival nor on departure. We have had several discussions before we left for Tehran. Could I bring a sealed first aid kit with syringes and needles, would this result in a complete body search and taking the luggage apart into atoms in the search for drugs? Since we brought a Video 8 camera, what about the broken seals of the cassettes, maybe the recordings will be subject to thorough investigation? What about the tourist book about Denmark I brought as a gift, there might be a small picture of women flesh other than faces and fingers (Danish beaches, you know)!
Since we just where waved through with the question "Where are you from?" we did found out if the items we carried with us could have been subject too investigation. Well home again, then seen in the mirror I don't think there any reason to worry, offcource you shouldn't bring material which are a direct provocation, like pork meat, Salman Rushdie books and magazines with uncovered women.

Hospitality
Already before our departure we had several contacts in Iran, and some of them even offered a place to sleep. We had accepted an offer from Leila; we could rent an apartment in the Northern of Tehran for the first days. This was a very good start for us; it was a great intermediate between our normal levels of comfort and the standards in Iran. During our stay we visited several families and homes and this is definitely the most memorial parts of the trip. We had prepared ourselves a little of this overwhelming hospitality by bringing different gifts from Denmark, so we could return a token of appreciation. The gifts doesn't have to be from you home country, nice things from the Bazaar can do it.

How are you - do you speak English?
The hospitality starts already on the street, where you will above mentioned so many times, that you at a certain time of your travel decide you only speak Russian! But before this time, just relax and answer their questions, all they what is to use their small English vocabulary. Sometimes some smartass carpet dealers bump into you and waste you time with Smalltalk that's only gonna convince you to go and buy in his fathers carpet shop - you will learn to spot those on 100 meters distance.

Does and don'ts
Clothes for men and women. It's not required that men wear jackets and matching pants as certain embassies sugest. Men can wear any kind of cloths, just that the pants are long and the top isn't a tanktop. If you will visit mosques, wear long sleeves or a shirt. Women have to wear a scarf as a minimum, covering their hair and their neck. But if they want to reduce hostile touches to a minimum a more conservative dressed are needed. Agnete and Laila choose a mantur instead of the more complicated chador; the mantur is a long black coat.
Restricted areas, there are warnings about Bam on different Foreign Office's homepages. Since we didn't go there I can't say for certain how things are, but all everybody we asked about this denied any possible problems in that region. If we have had more time I would definitely have gone there. You should still stay away from the Pakistan and Iraq borders.
Passport, some hotels want's to keep your passport, we denied that and gave them a photocopy instead. You can safely keep you passport at the hotel manager or in the hotel save - nobody can demand to see your passport, not even police, just keep some other identity paper on you an refer to the hotel you stay at. We was stopped in roadblock without our passport, we gave them just the name of the hotel and our names - no problems.
Money, bring American dollars, your will get the best exchange rate for new 100$ bills, less for old and smaller bills. The different are something like 10 or 20 rials per dollar. In the period we visited the country the exchange rate was 800-815 tomans per dollar. A toman are 10 rials. You will get a big bundle of 10.000 rials. If you change on the street, be careful in counting the bills; there will most likely miss one or two notes.

Transportation
Night train, even though everybody we knew laughed at us, when we said that we wanted to take the night train to Esfahan from Tehran. But it wasn't offcource not that bad an experience. The sleeping wagon was an Old Spanish one, and the rooms were rather small. We have bought 6 beds, so we had the cabin all for our selves. The price was all in all 11$. You will need a sleeping heart or a quarter of a sleeping pill to get a good night, but then you also wake up fresh in Esfahan. The madras's was a bit smelly, but there was clean bed lined.
Buses, in Lonely planet there are mentioned luxus buses and superdelux buses. When we asked for the super version, the ticket man replied, this is not America… There are only aircon and super on a few destinations. Getting tickets, was easy, just go to the bus station, there are many private bus companies offering different departure times. It's unfortunately impossible to evaluate the quality of the buses before departure - but they seemed quit similar. We took the following trips by bus: Esfahan - Yazd and Yazd - Shiraz. The first trip was five hours and the last the unbearable length of seven hours.
Aeroplane, this is cheap an offcource fast, we flew Shiraz - Tehran with Iran Air, this cost 140.000 Rials per person. It's good at nice aeroplanes, so not hassle there; other companies may have Russian planes.. ups.
Taxis are everywhere, most of them are unmarked, and are private persons earning some extra, so just bargain about the price before you get in. The price varies a lot, depending on you bargain skills, you can get a descent trip for 2-5000 Rials and airport trip normally costs 10-20kRials.

Places to stay
Except from the days where we stayed in private homes, we stayed at decent hotels. There are a dual pricing system in Iran, foreigners will normally be charged a price similar to hotels in southern Europe, which is very unsatisfying. We meet a Danish man, born in Iran, he was staying at hotel Omar (five stars) in Shiraz for 140.000 rials per night for a double room, will we probably would have been charged 100$. But it's also this price difference you shall use while bargaining, but if you can't get a good price, the just pack you stuff an move towards the exit, then the price will drop..
Esfahan, Aria 20 $ per double room.
Yazd, Aria 12$ per double room (on shower and toilet on the room).
Shiraz, Sasan 16$ per double room.

http://karstenfilsoe.dk/IranDK/Iran.htm