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Five weeks in Iran

By LUCINDA KIDD HACKNEY, Special to The News-Press
Published by news-press.com on November 16, 2003

The room is filled with the frenetic drumming of five young men pounding on giant dafs. They kneel on the Persian carpet. Sweat runs down their faces. The singer, body swaying to the rhythm, shouts the name of the Shiite Moslems’ beloved Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, over and over. We are carried away by the emotion of the music.

I’m winding up a five-week journey in Iran (culturally known as Persia, which was the official name of the country until 1934). This is my going-away party, given by neighbors I got to know in the Kerman City suburb where I am staying, in the southeastern desert.

The hostess passes mounds of fresh fruit and pastry between glasses of steaming tea. In grand Persian style, she praises me for my visit and I try to reciprocate with the proper Farsi replies: “May your hand not hurt," and "I’ll die for you," for example.

According to Iranian travel industry statistics, fewer than 2,000 citizens from North and South America combined visited Iran in 1999, the latest year for which numbers are available. The U.S. State Department web site posts cautions to Americans about traveling to this country that stretches between Turkey and Iraq on the west and Afghanistan and Pakistan on the east. So what was I doing there?

The vacation was the culmination of a 24-year-old dream. It began in 1978, while I was at a tiny university in Oklahoma, and grew close to an Iranian roommate. After a year she went back to marry and help build the new Islamic Republic after the revolution overthrew the Shah. We decided I would visit after things settled down.

Time passed and Iran seemed ever further away as the hostage crisis in 1979 caused the United States and Iran to break diplomatic ties. Relations were further strained when the United States sided with Iraq in its eight-year-war with Iran, from 1980 to 1988. Then there was the U.S. trade embargo clamped on Iran in 1995, for allegedly sponsoring terrorist acts through connections with the Arab group Hezbollah.

Recent reports indicated things had relaxed in Iran since the reform-minded president Hojjat-ol-Eslam Seyed Mohammed Khatami was elected in 1997. I decided to search for my friend.

In an old address book I found her family’s address. I gave it a shot, and sent the letter, including my e-mail address.

Almost five months later, I received an amazing e-mail: "Salaam Cindy jan!!!!!!… I received your letter a few hours ago….Me and my family would love to see you here in Iran…"

My Lonely Planet guidebook and all the Iranian travel web sites I checked were adamant that it would be hard for a U.S. citizen to get a tourist visa, without being on an organized tour with an Iranian company.

I sent all my passport details, to my friend Zari. Her 22-year-old son, Ali, started calling on travel agencies in Kerman.

The owners of Kerman Travel had gotten an American a visa once before and agreed to try once I bought a roundtrip flight to Iran and sent in my itinerary to assure the foreign ministry I had an exit date.

I got the visa five days before my flight. After a 10-hour flight to Europe, a 10-hour wait in Zurich, and a five-hour flight to Iran, I landed at 4:45 a.m., Aug. 6, at Mehrabad Airport in sprawling greater Tehran, estimated population: 12 million.

Along with the other female passengers, I slipped on proper Islamic dress before exiting the plane: manteau (a raincoat-like garment that covers female curves and hangs somewhere below the knee) and scarf.

Entering the airport I saw no signs that said anything about "Death to America" or "America – the Great Satan," those famous slogans from early revolution days. In fact, there was nothing scary at all about the airport.

I picked up my luggage, went through customs in about 30 seconds, and exited the doors into the arms of old friends.

Although I’d expected to be watched during my visit, no one ever asked me for my identification except when I applied for a visa extension – which was granted without a hitch.

My friends took me to all the major tourist areas in southeast and central Iran. The historic sites were spectacular, the Islamic architecture with its mosaic tiles and complex domes was breathtaking and the desert mountains were magnificent.

As a child in Sunday school I had heard a lot about ancient Persia, which is covered extensively in the Old Testament books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Daniel. So walking up the Grand Stairway of Persepolis – the Greek name by which most of the world knows the city started by Darius I in 518 B.C. – was an awesome experience.

At the top of the steps is the gateway to Xerxes’ palace, guarded by two 20-foot-tall bull relief statues.

Accompanied by a 22-year-old Iranian guide with excellent English we spent about six hours touring this World Heritage Site. The grounds are about two by three football fields in size and chock-full of columns and portals, statues, relief panels, the tombs of Artaxerxes II and III and a museum.

Of course ancient Persia is just one aspect of Iran. The culture of the predominately Zoroastrian population was changed forever by Arab conquest in 637 A.D. Most of the country converted to Islam within several hundred years. But the Persian people tenaciously held on to their native language and pursued their own cultural refinements.

I quickly learnedy that Iranians don’t like being called Arab. A little over half the population is descended from the ancient Elamites, part of the Babylonian Empire, or the Arians, whose ancestors came from the Central Asian Steppes. There are also Iranians of Azari, Kurdish and Turkish ancestry. Only about 4 percent can claim Arabic lineage. Subsequently, Persian cuisine, art, poetry and classical music are very different from their Arabic counterparts.

There is no better example of distinctly Persian Islamic architecture than the Emam Khomeini Square in Esfahan, constructed by Shah Abbas I in the early 1600s. We took a horse-drawn carriage ride around the square at sunset. The warm light shining on the turquoise, yellow, aqua and deep-blue tiles of the two giant-domed mosques was spectacular.

As the sun set we were joined by hundreds of Iranian tourists who showed up for what seems the favorite past-time in the country – picnicking with everything but the kitchen sink.

I asked people how often they saw people from the United States. Almost no one had ever met an American – except those of Iranian decent. But they all seemed glad to see me.

Something that made me glad were the low prices. The most expensive meal I ate was at a café on a mountain road in northern Tehran. A dish of six grilled lamb chops, saffron rice and salad was about $8. The average meal cost $3. Moderate hotel rooms were $30 a night and the five-stars were $75 to $120.

Nothing in Iran was as austere as I had expected. It appears the interpretation of Islamic law has eased since the revolution.

Although more than half of the women wore chadors — those body-length wraps that cover hair to ankles — many younger women in the cities flaunted shorter and tighter-fitting manteaus and many wore their long hair flowing out the back of their scarves. Young couples, probably engaged or married, held hands in public. And there was a lot of lively music — even Western pop music — blasted out open car windows.

If there was anything negative about Iran at all, I guess I’d have to say the air pollution, trash and traffic in Tehran. Iranian driving as a whole would scare the living daylights out of most Americans. My mouth dropped open many times as motorcycles loaded with families of four and five members — no one wearing a helmet — wove in and out of the dented cars. But I just kept telling myself: At least there’s nobody driving drunk here.

I just scratched the surface of multi-faceted Iran in my five-week trip. There’s so much more to see. I still dream of camping with nomads and riding horses with the Turkmen people. Maybe next year, I tell myself.

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