Persepolis

Today I visited persepolis (near Shiraz). The travel agent aranged a professional guide for me to tell about the site and symbology of the statues and stone carvings. Persepolis was beautifull to see and though today was an Iranian holiday the site was not too busy.

One of the symbologic features I remember was that of a lion fighting a bull. The lion represents spring and the bull represents winter. The lion was winning meaning that spring is coming. Spring celebration is a big event in Iran. It marks the event of the new persian year. 21 march it will be 1388. (maybe i have to return to Iran in 12 years to celebrate the turn of the century.

People from many countries and regions used to visit the palace of Darius the great in spring, to honour the king with gifts.

After Persepolis I visited Naqse Roshtam, the necropolis of the persian emperors. In the rock the battle and subsequent victory with the east roman empire was depicted.

Qeshm diving

Today we went for diving at Qeshm Island. I asked to make two dives, but did not realize that one of the dives would be to a ship sunk in the Iran-Irak war. I never really opted to dive to wrecks. I always worried that you could get stuck somewhere under water. However they provided me with an experienced instructor who would safely guide me to the wreck. Eventually we dived upto 25 m depth (a personal record, my last one being 15m). Later today we dived in more shallow water to look at some coral reefs.
Going diving is always a great thing to do. In the water you totally depend upon eachother and this creates a bond. Today I ate barracuda liver for the first time in my life. I don't know if I will do it again.

Fun at the Hotel

I am quite busy practicing Farsi nowadays. At times the hotel staff or people that come by help me out. But I have to grow some more confidence to just speak to people and make mistakes. Between practice and lessons there is also some time to make fun. I bought some balloons today. Balloons are like magic. They make anybody smile. With a young boy I played balloon "volleybal" for 40 minutes.

Familytrip to Karanak

Yesterday I had a wonderful time together with the family of my teacher. We went to the historic village of Karanak. She invited her brother in law, her sister and her mother. Spending a day with an Iranian family was a treat. We made a walk around the village had had a BBQ with shish kebab. I tried practicing my Farsi and showed some postcards of Delft and kinderdijk. They thought the Netherlands was really beautiful. I told them I enjoyed the warm weather, desert and mountains instead of rainy Holland. At the end of the day I tried to express my gratitude by giving them some nice items of Delft Blue pottery I bought especially for my trip.

Cultureshock or not

Being taught Farsi in Iran provides a unique opportunity to find out more about Iranian way of life. Between our practice sessions we exchange views about Dutch and Iranian way of life. It seems that people value friendship, family and religion over business. Therefore interaction between people may seem inefficient from a dutch guy's point of view. Woman play an active role in society: My teacher has a day job in the marketing department of a textile factory and holds a Bsc in Industrial Engineering. She told me an anekdote that Nike had to adopt a different marketing strategy for Iran since the image of a "macho" man practicing sports does not agree with the Iranian man ?!

A few years ago I had a lot of prejudices about Iran. Our media depicts Iran as an enemy of the west, supporting terrorism and trying to build an atomic bomb. On TV I remember seeing images of people protesting against the west and burning flags. I consider this the "hard outer shell". I used to think traveling to Iran should be risky.
When you enter Iran the warmth and friendliness of the people is hard to match with the image created by the media. Iranian people are real easy to talk to and when I explain them I am trying to learn Farsi they respond enthusiastically. For the moment I am puzzled.

Yazd and the water museum

How about waking up with the following view from your bedroom window. I started my farsi course and I am staying at the orient hotel in the old town of Yazd. Since most buildings are constructed of mud bricks (adobe) they slowly crumble away. 30 percent of the old town is in ruin.
The watermuseum did not look like much on the outside, but it was beautifull from the inside. The museum had a basement part giving acess to a qanat (underground aquaduct). These spaces were nice and cool and were used to obtain drinking water or do the washing (hopefully separate qanats ). Seven years ago a pipeline was constructed so Yazd no longer relies on qanats for its water supply.

Chak Chak en Karanaq

In the year 637AD a Sassasian princess Nikbanuh fled to this site. Short of water she threw her staff at the cliff and water began dripping out.
Chak Chak means drip drip it's Irans most important holy pilgrimage site for people of the zoroastrian faith




















Kharanaq is a almost deserted village in the desert with a citadel constructed of mud-brick houses. It's intriguing to walk around in the small alleys. Due to the softness of the bricks the citadel is slowly turning into a ruin.

On friday I will spent the night there to look at the sky and have a full day of farsi lessons.