Shamballa Cruising Yacht Club: Tehran via Muscat

After three months we were off to a new country with no curries! We were up before dawn to catch the 2 ½ hour flight to Muscat – Bye India. We spent 5 hours in the airport. I am still debating whether this time in the airport can count as having visited Oman - we did walk on the tarmac and breathe the air getting off the plane– but no, transiting in airports doesn’t count as visiting a country. Still it was fun watching the Omani men walking around in their white robes and pillbox hats. It was also amazing to see so many Westerners. It was the most Westerners we had seen in one spot since leaving Australia.

Omani men

Airport terminal

We were surprised that the exchange rate is $1 = 2.60 Oman Riel and prices at the airport were equal to Australia. They were raffling off a Masarati car at the airport - lots of oil money. Also the Oman English newspaper talked about the Omanification of Oman where they are trying to the Oman people in the workforce - they are all royal families so they don't work and all the 'work' is done by guest labourers.

Our plane was filled with those guest workers. Of the ~140 people on the plane there were only 4 women, including me, and Bob and I were the only Westerners. The entire rest of the plan was filled with young Indian men off to Oman and Dubai to work in construction, some had obvious industrial accidents and were sporting bandages. Still they can make more in the Gulf than in India. For many it must have been their first time on a plane because there were cheers and great excitement when the plane took off.

After another easy 2 ½ hour flight we arrive in Tehran. The Tehran airport is about 25 km from town but fortunately the hotel had sent a driver for us. The airport was dead quiet and there were no problems through customs or immigration. We drove on modern 6 lane highways where the cars more or less stayed in their lanes - where was the chaos, the tuk tuks, cows, beggars, filth? Tehran is a modern city of clean streets (but not so clean air) with well stocked shops of the most modern merchandise.

We were in Iran during Ramadan so there was no public eating from sunrise to sunset. The hotel served breakfast (Typical light Iranian breakfast of hard-boiled egg, tea and Iranian bread with cream cheese, butter and jam) at the normal time (7-10am) but then we couldn't get anything to eat really until after 8pm. The shops sold food but there were no restaurants or cafes open and we were warned that it is illegal to eat or drink publicly during daylight hours. However we saw lots of Iranians eating and having a drink during the day but they do it discretely. We did find out that some hotel restaurants, tucked in basements, do serve lunch.

It is a legal requirement that all women must wear head scarfs in public and a cover arms and legs but only about half the women you see wear the black shapeless chador. The rest wear a tunic type top or manteau, often quite form fitting, and blue jeans with the hijab. Men wear normal Western clothes but no shorts are allowed. So that I didn't have to buy lots of long sleeved tops I bought a manteau (like a house coat) to wear over my existing clothes. The head scarf is a pain as it is quite hot around the neck.

Eileen in her manteau for public areas in Iran

The people are very nice and friendly but not that many speak English. On day walking down the street someone just called out to us 'Welcome to Iran!'. Walking around I feel as if I am in any Western city. The people are not Arabic, they speak Farsi also called Persian and look quite Western - perhaps Greek or Italian. I can't really tell the difference in the script between Arabic and Farsi. The language is written right to left except for the numbers which are left to right. We have learned the symbols for their numbers so now know how much things cost but with the official exchange rate of 24,000 rials to $1 the many zeros are confusing. Also they frequently use the term Tomans instead of rials. A Toman is 10 rials - further confusing us with the number of zeros. Due to sanctions, ATMs cannot be accessed so all money is in cash and we needed to stock up on Euros before arrival. The money changers give an exchange rate well above the official rate so we are finding our Euros go a long way.

We were planning to spend less than a week in Iran staying in Tehran only then catch the weekly train to Turkey which runs every Wednesday. However the train was booked out when we arrived and tickets for the next available train didn't go on sale until the 14^th of July. So we used the wait as an opportunity to do a bit more sightseeing. We may go north to the Caspian Sea for a few days and see the Castles of the Assassins. How could one resist a place with that name? We need to do some more research. Meanwhile there was a lot to see in Tehran:

The parks and street scenes: