The magic behind Trump’s veil of hate
The President of United States will be pleased – his antics have boosted travel to Iran, writes Catherine Marshall.
It’s 3am in Shiraz and a man is leaning over my shoulder as I fumble for coins in my purse. I’m panic-stricken, unable to find the money to give to the woman standing before me with outstretched hand. Beads of terror prickle my face. ‘‘Here, let me pay,’’ says the man at my back. He slaps a note on to the counter and the woman hands him his change as she smiles at us and slides my coffee towards me.
The stranger is graciously dismissive of my protestations: ‘‘I’ve lived in Melbourne,’’ he says, eyeing my Australian passport, ‘‘and the people there have been very kind to me.’’
This act of trans-national reciprocity, offered as I wait for my pre-dawn flight home – the country’s two-tiered currency system, in which the rial is the official unit yet most prices are expressed in Iran’s colloquial currency the toman, which tricked me into thinking I had enough for coffee – is emblematic of an essential truth: Iranians are among the most hospitable and generous people you will meet.
What a pity, then, that we’ve been led to believe otherwise. Iran, as depicted in Western media, is a vision of dark political forces and unregulated nuclear weapons, radical Islamists and chauvinistic dogma; it’s a country into which only the foolish venture, and where their souls are imminently imperilled.
But these fools, such as they are, are rushing in, and they’re discovering that Iran is nothing at all like the hell they’ve been warned about.
To be sure, the country possesses monumental social and political flaws (for which they are rightly condemned), but the safety of tourists is not among them. And savvy travellers understand the illogicality of condemning an entire populace for the nefarious activities of its leader (a view Americans will be pleased to hear).
Nor can Iran be defined by almost 40 years of Islamic theocracy: this is a place where ancient trading routes, primordial ruins and religious tradition collide with voguish coffee shops, modern universities, thriving beauty salons and feisty citizens chipping away discreetly at the antiquated rules governing their lives.
Trump’s helping hand
‘‘Seven years ago, 400,000 people came to visit Iran,’’ says my guide, Nadia Badiee, one of a new generation of young women making strides in the tourism industry.
‘‘Last year [2017], four million arrived. They come for culture, for history, for nature. Most of
A guide to safety in Iran
SafeTravel (safetravel.govt.nz) currently recommends that travellers to Iran exercise increased caution because of the potential for civil unrest and the regional threat of terrorism.
However, those who have visited generally report it to be a safe country in which to travel, especially for women. Street demonstrations and other hotspots should be avoided.
Clothing:
Women must wear a headscarf in public but the rules around clothing are more loosely applied than one would expect. You see Iranian women dressed in everything from ultra-conservative chadors to high heels, bright – and sometimes tight-fitting – clothing, lavish makeup and scarves pushed as far back on their heads as the morality police (yes, they exist) will allow. Visitors should err on the side of caution. A headscarf should be draped before getting off the plane; hair can be exposed at the forehead and ponytails can be visible from beneath the scarf on the back. Jeans are acceptable, but blouses and jumpers should be loose-fitting and wrists and ankles should be concealed. Head scarves can be removed in private homes but visitors should follow their hosts’ lead. Men must wear long pants and long sleeves. Lightweight fabrics are essential for the hot summer months.
Alcohol:
Alcohol is strictly forbidden and those found smuggling it into the country will incur severe penalties. Visitors are not likely to be searched at customs, but random bag checks can occur. That said, alcohol is sometimes served in private homes.
Money:
While the rial is Iran’s official unit of currency, prices are usually expressed in tomans; one toman is equal to 10 rials. the people here are very nice. They still see tourists as guests.’’
The country’s tourism upswing appears to have been nudged by an unlikely – and unsuspecting – ally: American President Donald Trump.
Instead of dissuading travellers from visiting countries such as Iran, his anti-Islamic rhetoric may well have had the opposite effect, given bookings to the region have risen by more than 100 per cent since the implementation of his Muslim-majority travel ban, says Jenny Gray, regional product manager for Africa and the Middle East at the Intrepid Group (the ban prohibits entry to the US for most people from Iran, Libya, Iran, Syria, and Yemen).
‘‘As with any growth or decline of a region, there’s no way to tell for certain,’’ Gray says.
‘‘However, we’ve certainly seen a steady increase since Trump’s travel ban first came into play. Interestingly, at the same time we saw a sharp decline in travellers to the United States. We could also attribute this to a rise of consumer confidence in travelling to the Middle East.’’
And the trend doesn’t appear to be slowing. Iran in particular is set for a strong 2019, despite the American president’s recent renewal of sanctions against the country.
‘‘Travellers are curious to see more of the world,’’ Gray says. ‘‘The word is getting out, and [the Middle East] is a surprise for them. Everyone is looking for a place that exceeds their expectations and wrecks stereotypes.’’
Among the top achievers in the region are Israel, Jordan, Oman, and Egypt ‘‘which has had an amazing turnaround’’, says Gray, and departures for Iran – still a fledgling destination – have risen by more than 17 per cent. Such is the country’s growth in popularity, Intrepid introduced three new itineraries this year.
A blessed holiday
Snowflakes are powdering the passes and peaks of the Alborz mountain range when we arrive in Tehran, a city of about 10 million, which swells and shrinks with the movement of itinerant traders.
But the atmosphere on the streets is warm: locals lining up for sangak (flatbread baked on firescorched stones) shift to accommodate us and smile as we raise our cameras to record the baker’s dexterity; giggling children shout, ‘‘where you from?’’; an old man approaches our table in a restaurant and says he’s prayed for our safe journey through his country.
The old man’s blessing follows us as we travel
south across a barren, crumpled landscape from which roses bloom improbably each spring. Their luxuriant colour is reflected in the textiles woven in Kashan, where fabric-making is a time-worn craft. This was an important location on the Silk Road, and more than 7000 textile workers spun endless bolts of silk here during the route’s heyday. Today, just five master weavers remain. ‘‘The youngest is 74,’’ Badiee says dejectedly. From Kashan, we climb mountain passes slick with ice and bound by terracotta buttes sweeping down to a vacant horizon.
Isfahan is an oasis amid this forsaken landscape, a city where the gardens smell of cinnamon and the flower beds are crusted with snow.
Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque swells like a rosebud beside Imam Square, its ornate dome and recessed entrance hinting at the epiphany contained within: a vault overlaid with hundreds of thousands of polychrome mosaics, all tethered to the feathers of what appears to be an audaciously preening peacock.
But modernity is close by, elbowing its way in. A troop of schoolboys spills from Shah Mosque – a structure old beyond their imaginings yet capacious enough to contain their youthful exuberance – into the square, mobile phones held aloft, poses struck as they crowd around us for group shots.
‘‘Where you from?’’ comes the familiar refrain. Smiling at these younger, animated visitors, a mullah offers us sweets and thanks us for visiting.
‘‘We’re happy you are here, because you can see some of the realities of Iran,’’ he says. ‘‘You can speak to Iranians, you can see our culture and you can make up your own mind.’’
Into the waterless centre
My mind is made up long before we reach the central desert city of Yazd, where abaya-wrapped women beckon me to join them on a bench to pose with them for photos against the backdrop of Amir Chakhmaq Square. The mosque presiding over us enchants with an alcove-punched facade framed in tiles of blue and crowned by minarets jabbing at the sky. But really it’s Zoroastrianism for which this remote, waterless city is best known.
More than 1200 years ago, Badiee says, all Iranians followed this religion. Persecution has led to its decline.
But on the outskirts of Yazd, the religion’s burial grounds – known as the Towers of Silence – still stand. We pass the adobe shelters where Zoroastrians would wash and dress their dead, and follow the path they would take up a hummock to the open-aired dakhmeh (tower) erected atop it.
Here, they would arrange the dead bodies in concentric circles and leave them to the vultures. It’s 70 years since these towers were used for openair burial (an encroaching city necessitated their proscription). The platform offers no clue to the evisceration once brought upon it; the central ossuary contains not even a fragment of sunbleached bone.
Friends soothe epic journey
On the way to Shiraz we drink coffee from a roadside espresso bar, chase it with thimblefuls of rosewater, and swap Instagram handles with the barista. The desert gives way to the foothills of Kuh-e Rahmat, patched together in a collage of greens and impaled with the limestone columns of Persepolis, capital of the Achaemenid Empire.
Just over the mountains, at Shiraz’s Nasir-olMolk Mosque (Pink Mosque) – its tile work flushed and heavy with gold, its stained-glass windows casting rainbows upon the floor – we meet a couple on an epic journey.
Gevelyn’s Italian, Anton’s Australian, and they are cycling across the world, from her homeland to his. They introduce us to their companion, a Shirazi who approached them while they set up camp a few days ago and invited them to stay with his family. Today, he’s showing them the city sights.
‘‘Who in Europe would see two cyclists,’’ Anton asks, incredulous, ‘‘and welcome them into their home?’’
We shake our heads collectively, tickled too by the culture of hospitality suffusing this country, and alarmed that we might ever have been persuaded otherwise.