Day 19 (Tabritz)

*groan*
Back to the early starts...7.45am departure from the hotel for the 30 minute drive to the Turkey / Iran border. We needed to get on the road early to make sure we had plenty of time to spare in case we were delayed at the border crossing (thankfully it was pretty quick). Before we crossed we stopped at Mount Ararat (the biblical resting place of Noah's Ark) for a photo opportunity or three. We also got a group picture with the bus before we waved goodbye to Martin at the border.

I thought we were getting funny looks from people in Turkey..well in Iran we stick out like a sore thumb, but the attention we get is different to how it was in Turkey – altogether more friendly. We've all made an effort to cover our heads and wear baggy clothes, but we still get funny looks and laughs (which we found out was due to us wearing house clothes outside – eek!). The people on the street are guessing where we're coming from and are very welcoming. In our first day in Iran, I was welcomed to the country by no fewer than 12 people..pretty impressive I think.

The friendliest Iranian I've met to date is a gentleman by the name of Raza who stopped Una and I in the street to ask where we were from and if he could help us find anything. We stopped to chat and said we were looking for somewhere to get some dinner so he took us for food and we chatted about life in Ireland and his life in Iran. He's finished his BSc in Iran and will be going to Malaysia in December to start his MSc. He spoke about how people in Iran have no freedom and he was hopeful that the presidential election tomorrow might fix that big problem. He also enquired about our trip, where we were going, how long for and why we decided to do it. It was wonderful to sit with someone from another culture and listen to their story to see how their surroundings moulded their life, versus how mine have moulded my life. It was quite humbling and it's the first time on the trip that I've taken a step back and thought about how blessed I am to have the life that I have – it's not something I think about too much, but I really am very lucky. I have the freedom to do what I like when I like, wear what I like, sit wherever I like on the bus, speak to whomever I like and so on..after just a single day in Iran I could feel the strain of the restrictions that are in place on women here.

After dinner Raza introduced us to the taxi system of Tabritz...boy what an adventure. We crammed into the back of a cab and headed toward the hotel..or so we thought! After a bit of driving a man jumped into the front and shortly afterwards Raza said we needed to get out and get another cab as the one we were in was no longer going toward the hotel – something I found a bit odd and my spidey sense got a bit jumpy. But, as he seemed like a lovely bloke and had been extremely good to us already so we went with it and hopped into the next cab. Again we're driving along making progress when the cabbie pulls up and lets a lady into the front seat and off we go. At this point I was getting very confused, so we got the explanation about what was going on...cabbies fill their taxi with as many people as possible and drive whichever way is most convenient for them, but that may mean that you need to get out and get a different taxi to get to where you want to go – very, very strange! We eventually made it back to the hotel and Raza offered to take us and 2 friends to a lake that the locals meet at every night so that we wouldn't be leaving Tabritz with the only thing we'd seen being the Bazaar (largest in the world) and the plumbing shop Una used the phone in to sort out her credit card issue (some thieving gypsy tried to charge flights on her card so it's had to be cancelled). We hummed and hawwed for a few minutes and then had our minds made up to get one of the boys to come with us and to go have a look...some of the girls thought we were crazy and had me convinced it was a bad idea, but my gut feeling had been that it would be fine because he seemed like a genuinely lovely bloke. So..Ronan got roped into coming with us. Once he started talking to Raza in his car it was pretty obvious that they were getting on like a house on fire and everything was indeed as we'd expected completely kosher. The lake he took us to was called Elgoli Park and it was beside an amusement park about 25 minutes drive from the hotel. It's a man made lake with very choppy water and boats that you can rent to go out for a paddle on it. In the centre of the lake there's a pretty posh looking restaurant and all around it are walkways and flowerbeds – a really beautiful place that reminded me of night walks along Dun Laoghaire pier but with a bit more atmosphere and lots more people. Around the lake a lot of people had pitched up tents and there were families out walking with kids on scooters and rollerskates...not the kind of thing that I'm used to seeing at home so it was a refreshing change to the norm of seeing drunks falling out of pubs (don't get me wrong..I love home..but I reckon we could learn from this kind of thing). So, we walked a circuit of the lake before Raza dropped us back to the hotel. It really was a very pleasant first day in Iran..it's completely put me at ease about being here as I was quite nervous to start with. Thanks Raza!!

For photos from Tabritz click here.