Day 22 & 23 (Esfahan)

I was glad to be seeing the back of Tehran for a couple of days and excited about going to Esfahan for a two night stay in a hotel – really love having more than one night in a place. As is the norm we had a couple of stops along the way for our daily culture injection. First up was the National Museum of Iran where the most memorable things for me were a staircase (for the entrance into a building) carved out of a single slab of rock which I believe was granite, and the preserved head and foot of a miner who had died in a salt mine in the 1700's but was only discovered during the 1990's. After that we went to the Glass and Ceramic Museum which had vases and stuff from all over the Middle East and Asia along with a gorgeous chandelier.

As we were arriving into Esfahan, Saki advised us not to keep our passports on us and instead to use the save in the room or leave it with reception for safekeeping – I of course forgot about it, so when we left the hotel for a walk down to the river I got paniced by the number of people on the street and headed back to the hotel. When everyone got back we went to the Italian restaurant n the hotel. It was ok but nothing special. My views on the place weren't helped by the fact that the chef cooked up my pizza with olives after the waiter had taken note that there weren't to be any of it. Since we were in the land of the silent women I didn't know what the protocol was on complaining so proceeded to pick out as much olive as I could (it was diced rather than whole ones :( ), The waiter seemed to notice what had happened when he put the plate down in front of me but did nothing with it..then after everyone else was finished and after giving 2 slices away when I was halfway through he took it back giving me a new pizza. It made a nice lunch for the next day :)

There was a lot jammed into the full day in Esfahan with a tour of the city that would normally take a whole day being squeezed into the morning before siesta time to give us some time for our own exploration in the afternoon. The tour took in Vank Church with its beautiful oil paintings on the wall and Vank Museum where we saw the world's smallest book (.7mm with 14 pages containing the Our Father in 7 languages) and a human hair with writing on it that we could see through a microscope. The manuscripts they had on display there were stunning. It was very impressive to see the level of artwork and penmanship that had been put into making them. Next up was Imam Square where we visited the two mosques – one very, very large one that's being refurbished at the moment and a smaller one that was very charming. The big mosque had phenomenal acoustics as demonstrated by Saki. Also in the square, we visited the palace where we climbed to the fifth floor to see the repair work that was happening to restore the music room to its original glory. Finally, we visited a museum at the rear of the square and admired the artwork there.

After that the rest of the day was our own. I was sending more stuff home so went to the post office in a cab with Saki, Annie and Libby to get that sorted out, meanwhile Loonie and some of the others met a local guy in a carpet shop who took them to a traditional restaurant to get some lunch and they had a great chat with him. One tidbit of information they came back with was that if you're caught drinking alcohol in Iran you get 75 lashes. Also, if you are dressed inappropriately or your hairstyle doesn't adhere to the strict regulations you face being dragged off to the police station – nasty!

People were coming back to the hotel in dribs and drabs so I got into a bit of a panic when I hadn't seen Loonie around and heard a commotion outside the hotel. We were on the main street where some trouble had kicked off. I had been sitting in reception trying to get online when I heard the roar of motorbike engines outside and lots of shouting. A glance out the door told me that there was some kind of protest or riot starting – people were running in one direction with big sticks and then coming running back again. My room overlooked the main street from the first floor and as the hotel reception team had told us not to leave the premises (we couldn't be nosey from the door step) a gang headed up to peer out the window. They initially went onto the balcony but soon thought better of it and came back inside when people started shouting up at them and there was too much attention being drawn to them. When I joined them a fire had been set across the road from the hotel and was burning merrily as people chucked rocks and stones at each other on the street. The police arrived and started beating the crap out of people (3 of the gang were caught in the middle of the trouble [Kim, Alet & Nadia] and saw this happen first hand up close). We got out of the window when the police started throwing rocks up at the window – we took it as a sign that they weren't best pleased that we were watching what was going on.

The air cleared after an hour or two but it wasn't an end to the drama. In the evening there was a march by the supporters of the reelected president that went down the main street – so right by the front door of the hotel. We went out for a look to see what was happening and a guy in his early twenties came up to tell us that the police are killers and bullies and that the election was fixed. He was visibly upset and stressing out. We only figured out that the marchers were in support of the president when they started heckling and hissing at the people from the group who were sat on the step watching what was going on. The men all marched first with a huge number of women taking up the rear. We estimated close to if not more than 50,000 people marched down the street chanting and waving their flags. It was a sight to be seen, but not a happy one.

For photos from Esfahan click here.