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.

Gearriveerd!

Vanmorgen al druk aan de slag gegaan met mijn Farsi skills. Eerst maar op bed een tekenfilm gekeken en beneden de mensen een goede morgen gewenst. Morgen start het echte werk: Farsi cursus in Yazd.

Can't wait

The image shown is a hawk's bill turtle laying eggs on Qeshm island. They lay eggs in spring (maybe I am lucky but spring officially starts 21st march)

Story about turtles

My itinerary is as follows
26-2-2009 Amsterdam Teheran
27-2-2009 Teheran-Yazd
28/2 - 10/03 Farsi course in Yazd
10-3-2009 By train to Bandar-abas
11/3 - 13/3 Qeshm island
11-mrt diving
12-mrt diving
13/3 - 14/3 overnight in turtle guesthouse Shipdraz with breakfast, lunch, dinner
13-mrt 4wd island tour with lunch
14-mrt Bandar-abas to Shiraz
14/3 - 16/3 Shiraz
15-mrt excursion to Persepolis,Naqshe Rostam with tombs of Kings
16-mrt Shiraz - Ahvaz
16/3 - 19/3 Ahvaz
excursion to Shush, Zigurat and Shustar
19-mrt Ahvaz - Esfahan
19/3 - 22/3 Esfahan
22-mrt Esfahan - Teheran
23/3 -24/3 Teheran
24-mrt Teheran - Amsterdam