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Iran 2017 - Part 5 - Isfahan - Half the world

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Its been a very very long time since I've done anything with this blog, and here I am, posting in it anew. Iran's been in the news, and I've been travelling again and so I felt I might as well finish what I started. The following is slightly different - this is mostly a direct transcription from my journals.  Most of the time I feel I need to elaborate (and I have actually done a bit of that here) to change and redraft the text I carry in my bag for most of my life, but in this case (mostly) is seemed good enough, one might even hazard striking the word 'enough' from that last sentence.  I'd barely started talking about Iran when I ceased writing last time, there is a lot more to tell. So enjoy the story of a trip a good few years old.  If you're new to the blog please feel free to look at some of what I've already posted.  Who knows if I'll manage to keep this up so enjoy it while its here! The Buzz and the Beauty Friday the 4th of...

Iran 2017 Part 4 - Journey to Isfahan

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Breakfast was easy:  cheese wrapped in flatbread.  Paying my bill was complex.  So devalued is the Iranian currancy that 1000 has its own shorthand, 'Toman' this mixes freely with other forms of standard and unspecified monetary slang and it was something I never really came to a full understanding of.  Here, on my first morning, I was at the beginning of that particular doomed ascent into comprehension and so for the first time of many, thought I understood it all completely.  I nodded  "Ah Yes, of course!" and strode out into the dusty alley. With only the tiny map on the back of the hostel's business card to work from I headed first away from and then towards the Metro.  It was still busy and it was still confusing.  At one crossroads I encountered a contented looking mime, while I glanced, alarmed at his static smile, a lady, half glimpsed, brushed close and left me with a bunch of white flowers.  She was gone before I got a chanc...

Iran 2017 - Part 3 - The Tehran Bazaar

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Deep in Tehran my party and I hit an intersection.   Across from us the street gave way to cobbles, along which and off to the right a square was cut into the linear streetscape. Here were set two platforms at right angles. Crowds milled and pushed about them. We nuzzled in to get a closer look.  The platforms were lined with moustachioed men with perfect hair. They gesticulated wildly.  One, a large man, who seemed to be in charge, looked at me and shouted a word I didn't catch or understand, I stared blankly and waved.  We saw now that it was an auction The crowd bid for gold coins which sat in cases like picture frames at the men's feet. Gold Coin Auctioneers We broke away and found, just beyond and beneath an old arch pointed like a leaf, a short stairway leading down to a street arched over - seething and stretching away to an interior horizon: a morass of colour filtered on a bed of chador black. Shoppers shuffling beneath rich banners in luminous g...