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           The very first thing I did upon entering Iran was get done out of $12 due what I call “Confusion over the currency” and Karen termed rather more uncharitably, “being an idiot.” Travel rule number 354: ‘Always know your currencies.’ It’s an easy rule to find in the travel rule book, because it comes right before, ‘Don’t blithely give a random stranger on a train $20 to change without having a clue about the currencies involved. You moron.’ So, $12 lighter we alighted at Tabriz and found it a really charming, extremely friendly and perfect little introduction to Iran.

          One of the people we met in Tabriz decided to bring us to his university to meet his professor. Upon first consideration there was little wrong with this suggestion, even allowing for the fact that foreigners are not really supposed to be visiting universities in Iran. Our friend however turned out to be quite vehemently anti-government, spending the taxi journey to the university loudly lambasting Ahmadinejad, Khomeini et al. Sadly he had even had friends arrested and beaten by government troops for protesting. Again, we could deal with this. Where we began to get nervous was when we arrived at the university and after sneaking past security found ourselves in the basement floor of the building. Our friend turned out to study electrical engineering. Thus, day three in the ultra-paranoid Islamic Republic of Iran found Karen and I in the laboratory of a university, illicitly, and accompanied by a known agitator. This was not quite what we had planned.

           In fairness it should be pointed out that all the people we met on our first stop in Iran, including the student above were among the friendliest and most welcoming we’ve met in our entire trip. At one point it looked as like it was going to be difficult for us to manage to actually spend any money in Iran such were the amounts of free tea/coffee/lunches/bus rides and the like offered to us.

            Yazd was probably one of the highlights of the entire trip. We came for the picturesque mud-build houses and epic views of the desert but ended staying thanks to the brilliant hospitality at the Dutch-run hostel. With the weather too hot during the middle of the day to facilitate much sight-seeing it was great to have somewhere to chill out. Yazd was also where the growing addiction to the non-alcoholic beer became apparent, with the result that I clearly won’t be able to order a beer anymore at home without first asking if it can be peach flavoured, such was my reliance on them in Iran. It’s one thing to have a problem with alcohol, but you don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘addiction’ until you’ve tried, and begun to rely on, a Lemon Bavaria on a hot Iranian afternoon. I’ve seen the future and it’s fruit flavoured. My emails to Guinness suggesting that they begin manufacturing a peach stout have thus far gone unanswered. 

            On one of the days we spend there (we intended to stay two and left five days later), we went out on a day trip to a few of the surrounding sights including the Zoroastrian temple at Chak Chak and then out into the desert to climb the dunes, see the sun set and enjoy a campfire-lit picnic.

         Going out with a larger group made a nice change but also reminded us of our linguistic short-comings- the whole day’s trip was conducted in English. Total number of native English speakers in the group of 15? Karen and Martin. We also got to watch some very earnest amateur photographers in action- it always baffles me to see these people, weighed down by a tonnage of equipment and then unable to take a photo of anything unless it involves leaning backward, standing on their heads, bending vertically around a tree or lying flat on the ground. Just point and click for God’s sake! Life isn’t supposed to look like a Vogue photo-shoot (except on some of Beirut’s trendier boulevards).

            The Zoroastrian temple was a little disappointing as despite it’s remarkable location on a cliff top in the desert the actual building itself isn’t much to write home about. It also really took it out of everyone to clamber for half an hour up the mountain in the afternoon heat so when the crowds of tourists took off their shoes at the door to enter the place got a bit pongy. Any remaining decorum was shattered by the soaking wet floor which left everyone (including yours truly) who entered in socks, hastily yanking their trousers up and taking their socks off to keep in their pockets.

           We only spent a day in the ultra-conservative town of Kashan, a few hours drive from Tehran- though we probably weren’t able to give it the time it deserved thanks to tiredness and time constraints. We will however, remember the tutting that followed us (or rather, Karen) around due to the crime she had committed in not covering her entire person in heavy black curtains. Clearly, bright colours are a bit of an issue in this part of the country and the severe religious intolerance Karen showed by wearing an orange headscarf and green top led naturally to the outraged clucking from some of Kashan’s most respectable members of the community.  The other memorable thing about Kashan was the library in the hotel we stayed at- the most random assortment of Shakespeare, 1920′s Marxist economic treatise, Russian history books from the 1930′s, books about American television of the 1960′s, and academic journals concerning global collectivisation. I’d like to meet the person(s) who stayed in the hotel before us, though I’m not sure I’d like to stay and chat too long.

           Anyway, further updates later and pictures also!

So we arrived in Beirut only to find there was no room at the inn. Or the two other budget-priced inns in the area. In despair after having endured a bus journey of several hours from Damascus and a border crossing, we were about to give up when we saw the sign, lit up like a big lit up beacon in the distance: ‘Hotel al-Naim.’ The wooden sign below it stated: “Private rooms for families.’ As we were unsure what this meant we, sensibly, disregarded it. Sure, it wasn’t the cleanest looking building in an area that looked like an industrial site battered by years of civil war, but, seasoned travellers by now, we’re able to deal with a bit of discomfort to save money.

In hindsight, we were misled by the sign: “Hotel al-Naim.” Sure, “Homeless Shelter al-Naim,” wouldn’t have had the same ring, but it would have given us a chance. Tired and fed up as we were, we would probably have been able to distinguish from the latter name that we should try our luck elsewhere.

Because so tired were we that we manged to throw our bags on the beds and leave the room in search of food, ignoring the dead flies on the floor, the open hole in the wall covered by a mere wire mesh, the brutally loud fan, the rock hard beds and the lack of other backpackers. We noticed the ‘Hotel’ wasn’t the cleanest. And we really would have preferred it if the door closed properly. But the fact that we were staying in a shelter wasn’t immediately apparent to us.

The fact that something might not be right was discretely suggested to us by the manger of a hostel across the road. Enquiringly as to the availability of rooms there the following night he asked us where we were staying that night. His response, when we told him, was measured: “You should not stay there. It bad place. If you had said you were staying at Nearby Hostel 1, I would have said that was good. If you had said, Nearby Hostel 2, better….but Al-Naim? Is bad place. Is dangerous. Be careful.” Feeling more and more like characters in a B-movie we thanked the man for his re-assuring words and left. Much deliberating later, we returned to “Hotel” Al-Naim. There was noone around. This was slightly disappointing given that by this stage we were anticipating the possibility of being attacked by an knife-wielding (homeless) maniac. (Karen had determined to run. Having seen a nature documentary on jungle life once in the distant past, my defense was to spread myself as wide as possible, hissing loudly in the hope the predator would assume me to be more dangerous than I actually was. It’s probably best we never got to try this out.)

Indeed, we ended up staying, enduring little more than a nervy night’s sleep. And we even lay in in the morning, when we intended to leave at dawn. Sure, we were woken at 7am but a drunken sounding lunatic shouting the same three words over and over again around the corridors. And sure, we had an array of magazines strewn on the floor, jumping from one to the other to avoid walking on the insects. But we survived. High on life, we danced out into the cratered streets and a taxi to an entirely different part of town to stay in a $60/night hotel, flies not included.