Saturday, October 24, 2009

out of iran

after spending 15 days in iran, we made it to armenia.

the tour was good, just the two of us. guides varied but for the most part they were all good and helpful. we went to lots of big cities (tehran, shiraz, esfahan, yadz, kerman, mashad) and saw many mosques, old houses, gardens, cultural, and historical sites. won't go into that, the pictures (when i get around to posting them) will speak for themselves.

first off, everyone we met there was extremely nice. very curious about tourists, we always had people coming up to us and asking where we're from. many were surprised we were americans, only because they see so few. we had some good, interesting conversations with many, it was a bit surprising how honest and critical some were about the government and revolution. only one somewhat negative reaction when we said we were american, and he wasn't rude, just kind of ended the conversation and walked away.

school girls were really curious about us, always coming up and asking to take pictures. one funny incident is a 4 year old boy who came up to me for no reason and started kicking me in the shin. left a little scab. otherwise, we really enjoyed meeting and talking with people.

in the cities, traffic is horrendous. takes forever to go anywhere and it doesn't seem like driver follow traffic laws, usually red lights but not always. so car rides were a bit nerve wracking, since 2 lanes were usually used as 4 or more lanes.

pollution in the cities and highways was really bad, as bad or worse than china. probably due to the cheap gas (40 cents/gallon with a gas card, $1/gallon without card), so there are many cars with no pollution control.

i think we both are glad we went to iran, it was an interesting and good experience, but we were also ready to leave at the end...

No comments: