Persepolis

On our way to Persepolis, one of the greatest cities ever constructed, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenian Empire (520BC). Darius the Great started construction of this massive palace complex. In 331 BC, Alexander the Great burnt Persepolis to the ground.

Quote from Dorothy: “I’m not real big on history…. Cyrus 1, Cyrus 2, Cyrus 3.and then Alexander burned the dump down”….

We stopped at Nagsh-E Rostam, containing the carved tombs of 4 Achaemenian tombs (Darius the Great, Xerxes, Artaxerxes and Darius II) plus 8 reliefs from the Sassanian dynasty cut into the stone.

By the time we reached the “Tomb of Cyrus” at Pasargadae, my costume was almost doing a “Marilyn Monroe”.

We tried to cash money at the hotel. They told us to go to the black market.
Dinner at the hotel…and more ‘little date things”…
Dorothy entertained us with tales of taking her Egyptian friends to a Sunday gospel tour of Harlem and then to the Harlem hospital emergency room, “Look, there’s a guy with a knife in his chest.”

Shiraz

A king size bed, a/c and real water and another Homa Hotel with “Down with USA” (the Homa Hotel motto).
I modeled my new “fashion statement” to the envy of the other women travelers.
We dubbed Cristi, the tour leader, “Mama Duck”…
We started to name all of our fellow tourists:
* Rudy: Herman the German “Don’t ask me anything personal. Our guide is an idiot! I know more than everyone!”
* Marian: Stupid Question…”Why is this country called Iran?”
* Jeanette: Baby Moon, a.k.a. Moon Unit
* Ginny and Jerry:Sugar and Jerry Falwell She is a short, plump, boring Puerto Rican, he a 6’3 Jerry Falwell look- and sound-alike. In their late 50’s, married for three years, they hardly speak to each other. He calls her Sugar. He wants to travel the world – and has; she wants to go shopping and go home.
* Edgar: Edgar Allen Packer Don’t ask.
* John: Color me Retard, Edgar’s roommate. When Edgar blew his dinner at the table, John wouldn’t give him the key to their room.

Shiraz is a mass of greenery and culture- a town of roses, nightingales, love and poetry.
In Shiraz, we visited the Bagh-e Eram Palace and gardens… a Qajar 19C Palace.

We met a guy with a converted three-wheel motorcycle. He lost both legs and his arm in the Iraqi War, had them fixed in Germany and the government provided him with the motorcycle so he can get around. He was as pleasant and friendly as could be.

We had plans to visit the bazaar, but the government has suggested that the merchants close to commemorate Fatima’s death (Ali’s wife, died in the 7th century). There were black flags all over the town and many black funeral monuments.

We visited the private home of Nasir Al Molk and Narenjestan (built in the 1870’s) and the Jame Mosque (Masjede Atiq)

While waiting for the group to get back to the bus, John spotted a local junk shop. We found a brass camel with scenes from Persepolis on it. The merchant was not terribly happy to see Americans, but sold it to us anyway. A grumpy old man selling us junk at his asking price.

The local junk shop (above) Street scenes (Below)

Lunch was at a great local restaurant. We tried a new dish called “Tah-chin”, crusted egg with meat in between.
Then it was a visit to Hafez’s Tomb, arguably Iran’s greatest poet. We got a poetry recitation from the local guide.

Hafez: The Ben Franklin of Iran, with a touch of Fortune Cookie wisdom:
* “The world is hard on those who don’t take it easy”….
* “If you are married, don’t think anymore of freedom”….
We took photos of Iranian soldiers who in turn, took photos of us.

Once again, we blew off group mode and started a 3 hour walk through Shiraz.
We were stopped by an Iranian businessman, who recognized us as Americans and begged us to help him get a Visa to the US…then begged us to come to his home to meet his family. He said that the people hate the government.
We walked to the bazaar, stopped to watch a storyteller who had had gathered a crowd of about 100 men. Then, we visited the Pars Museum and saw the Karem Khan Citadel.
We met another Iranian (an electrical engineer) who wants to live in the US.
John equated Iran to baklava…many, many layers, sticky and nutty….
We bought some new headgear for me. The scarf inhibits peripheral vision and needs constant attention, so we got a one pieced model that looks something like the headgear worn by Catholic nuns.
We got lost in the maze of local housing (18C) and came across two guys duking it out in a very serious fight, and quickly headed the other way.
We met a nice guy on his bike who helped us get a taxi and experienced some major squeezing on the ride home.
Kids know “ Hello, How are you, I love you”.

Mashhad to Shiraz

7:15 breakfast and we were on the road again to Torbet e Jam.
As we approached the Afghani border (about 25 miles away), a military escort joined us on the bus. According to the military, there was Taliban in the area.
We got some local bread and took a photo of a memorial to Fatima. The town was filled with Afghani refugees (Afghani Shiites are called “Hazara”) Ten minutes later, we headed back to the police station to give them a complete list of our names. Another wait, and we were turned back. The police wouldn’t take responsibility for us, so it was back to Mashhad. It was a five-hour round trip to the Afghani border just to get bread. On the way back at the next checkpoint, we had a soldier walk through the bus.
We, once again, blew off group lunch, and headed into Mashhad. We grabbed a burger and 2 Pepsi’s—for 5500 rials (about $1.50).
Then, it was off again to the airport to fly to Shiraz. We arrive at 3:30…. take off was at 6:15. What a shift in attitude- from steely eyed mullah men to people hugging us saying, “Welcome to Iran”.
BBC Report: Iran begins flying air raids into Iraq to kill guerillas infiltrating into Iran. These flights entered the Iraqi no fly zone. The US is sending the nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz into the Persian Gulf to stop all non-UN flights. What a strange feeling as an American visiting a country that is being intimidated by US military power. Rudy, the anal-retentive German on the tour, followed these events on his short wave radio. Rudy is so strange…he won’t tell anybody anything about himself.

Tehran to Mashhad

5:30 am start
I conceded to wearing clothes under my mantou after local breezes began setting the stage for an unscheduled hemline hike.
Today was the introduction to Iranian Air on a flight from Tehran to Mashhad.

The airport scene was unusual:
* Women and men segregated at check-in
* Women face the “hair and lipstick police”
* Everyone gets a full frisk
* All batteries have to be removed from carry-on bags…could be the makings of a bomb. This includes camera batteries. Nahman commented as he boarded the plane, “I’d be the perfect candidate to carry a bomb—at my age, I’m useless”.

We were flying a Soviet Tupolev “727-ski” (Typolev 154M). What a feeling of confidence when the Iran Air maintenance man checked the tire of the plane by beating on it with a screwdriver.
We met an Iranian passenger who lived in the US…in Oklahoma. His comments on the mispronunciation of “Iran” by Okies…. “When I hear “Ear-Ran”, I ran…” (Iranians pronounce Iran as “ear-ran.”)
We landed in Mashhad and it was like landing on another planet. There were hoards of “black packages” running around the airport

Putting on our chadors
We got our formal “chadors”, complete coverage for the Mashhad sites. They were ugly, hot and hard to keep on, although we did provide major amusement to the locals as our group attempted to put them on.

We headed to the city, and learned that we had gotten approval to enter the “Holy Precinct” (Harem-e Motahar e Emam Reza), the most holy Islamic site in Iran, the tomb of the 8th Imam of the Shiites, Imam Reza.

A little history of the Shiites:
Shiites believe in 12 Imams, or leaders of the faith that succeeded Muhammad. They are all descendents of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and her husband Ali (more of Ali later). The Imams are believed to be infallible, sinless, and to have a divined right to authority.
The fourth Imam, Hussain, is one of the most revered. He died in 680AD at Karbala in Iraq -about 50 miles south of Baghdad- in a suicidal attack on the Sunnites, an attack that split Islam into Sunnite and Shiite camps forever. (More of Hussain and Karbala later.)
Reza is the only Imam buried in Iran, and since travel to Iraq isn’t possible, Reza’s tomb has become high in importance.
The 12th Imam, al Madhi, is (surprisingly) not dead. He hasn’t been seen since 880AD, an absence that is called an “occultation.” He is expected to return at some point in time, his return signifying the beginning of justice on earth. Some Iranians feel Ayatollah Khomeni is the 12th Imam; he never denied or affirmed that he was. If he was, he sure didn’t learn much between 880AD and 1979AD. In any event, Shi’ites believe that Mullahs derive spiritual power from al Madhi, and so they are better off that he is in occultation.

More interesting factoids:
Shiites pay a religious tax called zakat directly to their clerics (mullahs), rather than to the state. This gives some mullahs great wealth to go along with their spiritual power.
They believe in “temporary marriage” called “muta,” in which a man and woman can agree to be married for a short but specific amount of time, and how much monetary support the man will pay. If she has a child, the man is expected to pay support even though the marriage is over.
Finally, they believe in “taqwa,” which is a principle that gives them permission to hide their religious beliefs in time of danger. This principle has been loosely interpreted by some to hide the truth when is suites their purpose…a bit of a problem.
One of the really strange facets of Islam in Iran: the Mosque attendance at the main time of prayer on Friday, at noon, is very light compared to that of Sunnite Arab countries. This is inexplicable, since the Iranians are quite religious. Perhaps prayer is felt to be a private act.
Some Mullahs were very nice to us; others gave us the “evil eye.” We called the latter guys the “steely eyed mullah men.” They didn’t seem happy with visitors from the Great Satan.]

We got our orientation and filled out our application forms to enter the Imam Reza complex. We visited the Gohar Shad Library and Gohar Shad mosque built in the 15th C and looked into the Imam Khomeini courtyard
John saw a prayer stone at the Sahn-e Quds courtyard and slipped it into his pocket.

* Prayer Stones (“Mohr”) Mohr are about one square inch in size, and are placed on the ground as a place for the head to touch during prayer. These “stones” are made from Karbala clay so the worshiper’s head, and prayers, can be close to the beloved Hussain.

We cleaned out the museum gift shop of Ayatollah postcards. During this transaction an Iranian woman sitting next to John fell over stone unconscious onto the floor of the museum. The Americans found help, but her husband, standing a few feet away, did nothing. She eventually came around.
We checked in at the Homa Hotel with ”Down with USA” in huge gold letters over the main door. Welcome to Iran…

Every hotel room in Iran has a ceiling sign pointing to Mecca, a prayer rug and prayer stone and copy of the Koran.

Wake up calls—if not answered, they’ll come to your room, knocking and yelling, “Get up, Get up!”

After lunch, we took a 2-½ hour bus trip (one way!) to Shurlukh (117 km from Mashhad and 60 km from Sarakhs and the Turkmenistan border.

We saw a 12 C Seljuk caravanserai, Rebat E Sharaf, once on the Silk Road.

The chief ditz on the tour, Jeanette, remarked on the “beautiful baby moon”. We resolved to sit as far from Jeanette as possible for the remainder of the trip. This was a wise policy as it subsequently turned out. She was a card-carrying idiot.
We left at 3:00 and didn’t return to the hotel until 8:00… We decided that we would never again do anything with the group that we don't want to do, and we decide to make a lot of free time for ourselves each day away from the group. Thanks, Shurlukh.
We blew off the group dinner and walked into Mashhad.
We stopped at the local women’s clothing store and bought two outfits for me then found a local dive for greasy kabobs and Zam-Zam. The locals were amazed to see Americans.

Our first day in Tehran

This morning, I got to try on her my new outfit –a mantou. It’s very hot and the only way to deal with a full coat is by wearing very little underneath.
Breakfast buffet at the hotel. It was first come, first serve. By 7:45, there was no more food.
The Adazi Grand Hotel was the site of a convention as well as one of the first Trade Shows to hit Tehran, so the hotel was overrun with businesspeople. And, only 2 of the 4 elevators were working.
We changed $50 to rials…. 4400 rials to the dollar. By the size of the wad of bills, we were rich!
John got his newspaper fix buying a 200 rial “Tehran Times”…our source of news for the next 3 weeks. It was a lot of Iranian propaganda mixed with trivial news from Reuters, “Down with America” stories and U.S. football game articles.
We visited the Archeological Museum. Abgineh Museum of Glass and Ceramics (housed in the former Egyptian Embassy)
Lunch was at a local restaurant. Since it was Friday (their Sabbath), the restaurant was packed with people lined up 3 flights of stairs to get in. The food was good. It’s evidently one of the very few restaurants in Iran serving anything other than bland kabobs, eggplant, Zam-Zam fake coke and undrinkable alcohol free “beer.”.

Comments from our local guide, Cyrus:
* Japanese Tourists: They ask no questions, they just take pictures
* Italian Tourists: They ask lots of questions, but are very noisy.
* German Tourists: They come just because the Iranians are also Aryan and therefore, “they’re just like us”.
* We are “completely safe”…no one will bother you “unless their son was killed in a jihad”
We got to drive by the former US Embassy compound. No photos were allowed but they have an active business selling propaganda in English, including copies of secret documents painstakingly pieced together from the shredder of the Embassy.
Next on the agenda was the Carpet Museum. The carpets were beautiful and they had a gigantic Ayatollah rug…
Reza Abbasi Museum had the most wonderful collection of Persian miniatures and spectacular collection of ancient artifacts and illuminated manuscripts. The miniatures are painted with brushes made from the chin hairs of 2-week-old kittens. This is the same mindset that reconstructed the embassy documents, and that could build “the bomb.” Asian attention to detail makes the Germans look normal.
After a full day of museums, we stopped for a Zam-Zam and non-alcoholic beer in the hotel lobby. They can’t make fake beer, but the fake coke was surprisingly good.

Before our “introductory group dinner”, we decided to escape to the local amusement park across the street. Everyone in Tehran must have been there. We were the only non-Iranians and got a lot of smiles and laughs. We tried the “Rainbow” ride—a real stomach flipper. It was hysterical to watch the women in chadors going down the giant slide…they just hike it up and slide on down. This is the only amusement park we’d ever seen with a moving Ayatollah billboard and a mosque (the mosque was easy to find—it was directly under the giant squirrel’s tail!) I faced the challenge of hopping in and out of rides “in costume”. We saw our first (but not last) “Death to USA” sign on one of the rides. Strangely, the street level posters of Ayatollah Khomeni were usually defaced.
Then it was time for the mandatory “group dinner” at the hotel. We actually found some interesting characters on the tour. Nahman, an ex-Army Engineer Corp, in his 80’s who lived in Tehran in the 1950’s - back to see how things have changed since the Revolution. Rudy, a.k.a. “Herman the German”, in his 70’s, lectures on Islamic Architecture.

We learned about:
* “Bad Hejab”….and that our local guide checks the women’s clothing every morning to make sure that they don’t have “bad hejab”
* Jame Mosque (Friday mosque) – provides both spiritual instruction and secular “interpretations” for matters on earth. This is the basis of the clergy control of politics and public opinion. The mullahs (clerics) hold a position similar to Orthodox rabbis in Israel. A mullah’s status is a function of how many followers he has…a sort of informal democracy…they can rise as high as Ayatollah, or sink low enough to no longer be a mullah.
* Buses: Women and men are segregated…. women in the back of the bus. Interestingly, this policy is also being implemented on some bus runs in Israel.

From Germany to Iran

We bought the stupid bobbing “Herman the German” decoration and shipped him home with John’s dirty shorts.
Yet another cruise- this time downstream (North) on the Rhine to Boppard.
The boat was filled with smoking Japanese tourists…fortunately, they all got off at St. Goar. Without all the tourists, we got the full advantage of the 60’s music piped into the boat.
We landed in Boppart and boogied to the train back to the hotel, grabbed the car and headed south and across the Rhine by car ferry.
Lunch in Assmanhousen…Wiener schnitzel and rouladen.

We drove to the airport…. 6:00 p.m. boarding to Tehran.
1:00 am – We landed in Tehran. All women had to don scarves and coats before departing the plane. We cleared customs in a mere 2 ½ hours. Even during the customs process, the sexes are segregated.
The Lufthansa flight attendants return immediately to Germany on the next flight (1 hour later)…they refuse to put on the “costume” and deal with Iran.
We drove to the “Adazi Grand Hotel” (which may have been grand in it’s days as a Hyatt.but could use a little paint and paper) Our room (boy scout beds) had the smell of fresh varnish and the drapes were laying on the floor.

Iran Map and Route

The Rhine River to Bingen

Feeling jet-lagged, we slept in until 11:30 then raced to the boat…Rhine River Cruise upstream (south) to Bingen

We took the rail back then grabbed the car to Loreley –restaurant overlook – for wine. We met an unrepentant 76-year old Desert Rat who was a POW in Canada. Funny, dirty old man….
Nightcap on the terrace of Schonburg Castle with “Herman the German”, stupid bobbing decoration.

From Trier to the Moselle Valley

More highlights of Trier
* Karl Marx House
* Dreikonigenhaus
* Rheinisches Landesmuseum
* Judengaase (Old Jewish quarter now featuring an Irish pub)
* Cathedral
We grabbed a bratwurst for “pre-lunch” then drove to Bernkastel…stopped for goulash souppe
We toured/walked all over Bernkastel. More farting….

Then, we drove through the Moselle Valley to Cochem and to Broden Bach.
Cross-country to Oberweisel.
We got the most beautiful room in Schonburg Castle hotel on the Rhine. Our room was in the castle tower overlooking the Rhine valley.

We ordered kase platte and wine on the terrace.

From Boston to Trier

We slept in until the flight; a 6:05 p.m. full flight to Frankfurt
We landed at 7:00 am and immediately got our rental car and started racing….
We drove to Trier via Mannheim and Kaiserslautern on the Autobahn
We got into Trier at 10:30 am with no sleep. We got a greasy schnitzel and beer for lunch and embarked on our City walking tour for 2 hours.

We saw the entire city; Porto Nigro (a.k.a.: pinot negro), the Hauptmarkt, Basilka, Kaisertrermen (Royal Baths)

After the tour, we drank wine and people watched at a small café.
Still no sleep
We ate dinner at the hotel---- pepper steak and Farted and waddled to bed and passed out…

Club trip to Cancun

A mid-winter break for my Club trip gave us the chance to see Cancun and experience not only the strange experience of an all-inclusive resort- but also see the ancient Mayan cities of Tulum and Chichen Itza.

We checked into the Club Med and found a sparsely furnished room (no TV’s – the point of the resort is to “mix and mingle”, not sit in your room and watch TV).

With the full list of all of the inclusive activities, we ran to our rental car to escape the ClubMed experience.

We took a day trip to visit Tulum, the walled city. The walls surrounding the city made the fort a perfect place to defend against any invading forces.

On one side, the city was protected by steep sea walls and on the other by a huge wall. Tulum also became a important trading port.

We escaped for another day trip to Chichen Itza, about 117 miles west of Cancun. It was a center of pilgrimage for the Maya for over 1,000 years . The Temple of Kukulcan (Quetzacoatl) is the largest structure-a huge stepped pyramid with a staircase on each side.

El Caracol served as the astronomical observatory.