3 - 7/10 Tehran / Tehran

Here is a short resume of the 5 days in Tehran.
We stayed with Rezvan,( old friend from Mysore) who had a beautiful apartment in the north east part of the city. It is a gated community, with all the bells and whistles. There are 150 apartments in each block, and we counted at least 8 blocks. With tight security, it is a very peaceful place in Teheran.
First we checked out shipping for the car at PFS/DSV. The babes in this office kept eying Daniel, so not much work was done the first day. We plan to ship the car from Bandar Abbas, and it seems that it is best to send it directly to India. Spend the next few days shopping and seeing the sights in Tehran. Saw the collection of National jewels which of course belonged to the Shah and his family. These are definitely better than any other jewelry collection I have seen before. We saw the Peacock throne which is not from India, according to Persian history. There we saw some of the biggest Diamonds and Rubies in the world. The next few days were spent seeing a few of the Shah’s palaces. We hired a Rolls Royce to drive us around in one of them, which also belonged to the Shah.
In Tehran the traffic is miserable and noisy, just like India. There is no sense at all in their traffic rules, if they have any.
Rezvan cooked a barbeque for us one evening, which was great and the other evenings we cocked food ourselves. It was great making food on our own after 40 days on the road. We had great fun shopping for food. The last day here in Tehran, we went to wash the car, of which they did a fantastic job, and pretty soon we had 15 guys who wanted to look under the hood, and also check out the car. Nobody drives a diesel car in Iran.
Tehran has a lot of ironic extremes, which I will try and name a few. The temperature between north and south can differ by 10 degree C. Women have to wear scarves and cover their arms, but they have the tightest fitting clothes I have ever seen. Men are not supposed to walk in shorts, but they all watch football on TV, the regime is against USA, but Coke, Pepsi and American products are found everywhere, etc, etc. All in all we had a lovely relaxing time in Tehran together with Rezvan, who made us feel totally at home. It was sad to leave Tehran, but we had to hit the road again.



Vi har brugt de sidste 5 dage i Teheran, hvor vi har boet hos Michaels ven Rezvan. Vi har været hos Persian Forwarding Service, som arbejder sammen med DSV, for at booke forsendelse af bilen fra Bandar Abbas til Indien. Vi har dagligt taget en taxi ind til byen fra Rezvans lejlighed, en tur på ca. 1 time, vi har set på butikker, købt en typisk Iransk jakke til mig. Været på diverse museer, hvor vi har set Irans kronjuveler, hold da op nogle flotte smykker, fyldt med diamanter, rubiner og smaragder. Den tidl. Shahs smykker var udstillet, og især kroningssmykkerne var meget flotte. Vi var også ude og se Shahens paladser, igen interessant og flot. Vi har lavet mad selv, dejligt med hjemmelavet mad, efter så mange uger med købe mad. Rezvan har lavet Iransk kebab til os, på en lille grill på balkonen, det var bare lækkert. Vi har fået hjemmelavet Iransk vodka. Rezvan var lidt skuffet over, at vi ikke havde haft en flaske sprut med til ham fra Tyrkiet, men vi vidste ikke, at vi måtte have det med over grænsen, men han påstår, at kristne godt må have med til eget forbrug.
Vi har set de mange modstridende forhold her i landet. Bl.a at man sagtens kan se udenlandsk TV, alle har parabol antenner, hvor der vises let påklædte damer, men kvinder må ikke se mænd spille fodbold, fordi de spiller i shorts. Mange kvinders påklædning er meget kropsnært, meget stramme jakker og et meget løst tørklæde om håret, men alt er med lange ærmer og tildækkede ben. Jeg må indrømme at jeg allerede er træt af at rende rundt med et tørklæde, det er simpelthen en mærkelig følelse at skulle sidde og spise med et tørklæde om hovedet. Så snart jeg er inden for døren, smider jeg jakken og tørklædet, så kan man gå i næsten alt hvad man vil. Desværre er Rezvan fraskilt, ville ellers gerne have snakket med en Iransk kvinde