Here I am again, after a long break, trying to catch up to the present before I pay these beloved places a second visit.....:)
So- I asked the hotel to call me a taxi to the bus terminal, I managed that with the help of a translator I recruited from among the Iranian guests, I think....do not remember. The taxi took so long to come that I was just about ready to go out on the road and find one myself but he finally did arrive and took me to the large bus terminal of Tabriz. I bought a ticket for the bus to Sanandaj, down the road South into Kordestan, which was going to be an all night trip. Found another Iranian fast food store that sold kebab and some sort of shawarma and then it was already time to leave.
The conductor looked around the bus and found me an aisle seat next to a young lady in black. By the time we were half the way down to Saqiz it turned out that she, surprisingly, spoke a little English. She started asking me questions, simple questions, and after chatting for a while, she started treating me like a friend and invited me to her home. She told me, she would get off at Saqiz, and tried to persuade me to get off with her and spend the night at her house and continue my trip tomorrow. This i did not really want to do but I realy liked her kindness which I later came to know, is quite common in Kordestan.
At some point during the journey I lost the pin that held my headscarf together and got really worried how I would manage without it falling off (which is forbidden, basically, in Iran, though nobody ever says a word when this happens) . She grappled inside her black little handbag and sisterly handed me a broach of hers, silver with a few rhinestones, and said, I could keep it.
Then we stopped on the highway near Saqiz and she got off.
The bus started again and we drove through an area that had a wide quiet highway, lined with fruit and vegetable and fruit stores, and a strange creation of neon lights in the middle, a fantasy tree in red, with blooming flowers, all made of neon tubes. I wondered if this was considered "art" or "sculpture" in modern Iran, or whether it was simply a sentimental way to illuminate an intersection.
We pulled into a restaurant area where we could all buy tickets for Ottoman style food (kebab variations, of course) and softdrinks. By this time it was almost midnight.
Then we got back on the bus and drove towards Sanandaj. I was getting tired after this long journey sitting up, and after that exasperating hotel in Tabriz where almost noone spoke English but everybody talked to me in an incomprehensible dialect of what they said was "Turkish".
I had called the most expensive hotel in Sanandaj, Lonely planet said, this would cost a steep 20 $, because I felt reckless enough to splurge and just get some sleep and some comfort among people who spoke a language I could understand. We arrived at 5 in the morning. I unboarded, and found a taxi with a friendly looking old Kurd in it. He took me to said hotel but lo- all the staff was asleep on couches and chairs in the lobby, and when one of them did open the door he told me, the price was now 32$. (2.7 million rial instead of 2) I was upset, he ignored the fact that I had made a reservation, had been told a price, and when I did not give up, told me nonchalantly:"Anyway, you have to check out at 12noon and pay the whole night, so I think, too expensive for you." which is the Oriental way of pointing someone towards the door. i know this from Japan and Turkey already.
Now it was going on 6am and I was really tired. The friendly old Kurdish taxi driver gestured that this hotel was far too expensive anyway and he would find me something considerably cheaper now. We drove into town, a long way and he stopped on the main street, got out of the car, clambered up some stairs and pounded noisily on another hotel's door. I heard a heated exchange between him and the hotel keeper who was shouting through the closed door, then he came back, shrugged his shoulders apologetically and said, they were full. Then he told me, that the first hotel was astronomically expensive, this one was much more reasonable but now he would find me something even cheaper, so I should not fret and take heart, everything would be alright. I prayed in my mind that he was right.
He stopped at another place, the same scenario, door banging with his fist, a shouted exchange and I could almost understand from the tone what he was saying in Sorani Kurdish to the owner:"Oh come on, you gotta take her in, we have been to this other hotel and they did not give her a room, then we went dow the road and he rejected her too, come on, man, have a heart for this poor woman, she's been traveling all night!"
Finally the owner agreed, stated a hugely overinflated price with a glitter in his eye and handed me a key. A room, at last! The room was oddly shaped, sort of like a narrow trapeze, I noticed the qibla sign on the wall, for people who need to know the direction of Mecca for their prayers. there were two simple beds, straggly curtains and a shower. I pulled back the sheet on one bed- and found a pubic hair in the middle of it. Ugghhhhhh! They had not changed the sheets! And the person before me had obviously been a man sleeping in the nude who did not shave, where a good Muslim should...
I closed the sheet in disgust and tried the other bed. The sheets were wrinkled but at least no hair in it. Oh well. By now it was light outside and I went to close the old dark red curtains. Not without taking in a view for a moment- a street, across the street an ugly brick wall, and on that wall, two huge posters- one of Ayatollah Khomeini, and another of Khamenei (i think it was, before he fell out of grace). I sighed and firmly shut the curtains into their bearded faces and went to bed.
The same morning, after a few hours of sleep, I went through the scarf procedure again which went a little faster now than in Tabriz, had another odd breakfast with a small plastic knife and disposable fork and plate (these men must be too lazy to do any housework! I thought. No dishwashing, they don't even change the sheets always,they throw away the dishes after use, they give you an old, musty towel washed too many times, and that only after asking...why don't they allow women to work in these hotels, they'd do a better job!)
So, out i went to look at the city. Sanandaj is quite green, spacious, a lit with bright sunlight. I liked it. I found a few shops along the street, also one that sold hijab broaches and hair bands (I needed one after I lost mine) and up the street, there even was a tea shop. I went inside. It had two long benches along the walls, with small tables in front of them. Here were many old men ordering breakfast and the waiter carried a number of tea glasses in his hands that he filled quickly and dished out to the tables like an assembly line, with quick practised movements. Most men were having a breakfast fry-up, consisting of eggs and tomatoes served inside a pan. I ordered tea, grateful to FINALLY get a proper glass of tea again and a place to sit down, saving me from having to wander the streets without rest, like it had been in Tabriz.
Suddenly I spotted a young man in jeans next to me who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. I asked him if he, maybe, spoke English? He did! And offered to help me. This was Edris, who became my faithful companion for the next three days, who would pick me up in front of my hotel, and walk me home and show me around and help me buy bus tickets and check out flight schedules, and call me taxis, and show me where a restaurant was where I could have dinner (by myself). He was a huge help.
One day we went to Asef mansion together, a house of a rich Kurdish family, aristocrats, I reckoned, who had lived there and who had now, mysteriously, disappeared, and their house had been turned into a museum of Kurdish culture. We looked at all the figures of Kurds in traditional costumes, doing work, spinning wool, carrying shovels, wearing salwar and wide cloth belts tied around their belly. We took pictures of the courtyard and of each other and of us together.
That evening he showed me that restaurant. And when i had finished my dinner, there appeared another young Kurd, in salwar, the traditional proudly worn Kurdish trousers, he was accompanied by friends and an Englishman, and asked me if i wanted to join them in their roaming around the city. We did, we walked down to the big square, they bought ice cream and mulberry juice, we sat on the rails and then they showed us a park which was barren and brightly lit with flood lights, and they told me, this had been their hangout before , the date spot of the city, where young couples would sit on benches and kiss and lie between the bushes. But the city council did not like this, so they had removed all the bushes and installed the great lamps to keep people from getting into mischief.
While we were sitting under the lamps a car stopped in the street, and a newlywed couple got out, she in her wedding dress and walked into the park. Taleb and his friends told me that this was where the couple had met, before the shrubs had been removed....
So I had another Kurdish friend and the next day Taleb met me up the street and invited me to visit his family. They lived in a nice house and their living room was covered in a beautiful thick Persian carpet, on which we sat and had lunch together. His sisters even removed their hijab and I did too, feeling shy about showing my hair, by now. Taleb was an English teacher, and therefore, his English was almost perfect. And he had that impish Kurdish humour that I so love.
Both of them remained friends with me during my entire trip and would take turns inquiring about my health, give me advice about where to go and what to see via text messages, chat with me at night when I was alone in my hotel room and they both sent me a vpn file as a present so that I could use facebook to upload my photographs and keep in touch with friends, since this was the only way to access many of the usual websites like yahoo.com etc. . Vpn files were in common use in Iran and one could even buy them in some of the internet cafes.
I stayed in Sanandaj much longer than planned which delayed and altered my entire schedule by a couple days becauyse I liked it so much and people were so friendly. On the third day I went to the famous, as well as notorious and feared area of Howraman which is a fantastically high and steep mountainous area in the heart of Kordestan where Kurdish women still wear their original colourful dress and streets are overhung wirth vines. But more about this in the next blog entry.
So- I asked the hotel to call me a taxi to the bus terminal, I managed that with the help of a translator I recruited from among the Iranian guests, I think....do not remember. The taxi took so long to come that I was just about ready to go out on the road and find one myself but he finally did arrive and took me to the large bus terminal of Tabriz. I bought a ticket for the bus to Sanandaj, down the road South into Kordestan, which was going to be an all night trip. Found another Iranian fast food store that sold kebab and some sort of shawarma and then it was already time to leave.
The conductor looked around the bus and found me an aisle seat next to a young lady in black. By the time we were half the way down to Saqiz it turned out that she, surprisingly, spoke a little English. She started asking me questions, simple questions, and after chatting for a while, she started treating me like a friend and invited me to her home. She told me, she would get off at Saqiz, and tried to persuade me to get off with her and spend the night at her house and continue my trip tomorrow. This i did not really want to do but I realy liked her kindness which I later came to know, is quite common in Kordestan.
At some point during the journey I lost the pin that held my headscarf together and got really worried how I would manage without it falling off (which is forbidden, basically, in Iran, though nobody ever says a word when this happens) . She grappled inside her black little handbag and sisterly handed me a broach of hers, silver with a few rhinestones, and said, I could keep it.
Then we stopped on the highway near Saqiz and she got off.
The bus started again and we drove through an area that had a wide quiet highway, lined with fruit and vegetable and fruit stores, and a strange creation of neon lights in the middle, a fantasy tree in red, with blooming flowers, all made of neon tubes. I wondered if this was considered "art" or "sculpture" in modern Iran, or whether it was simply a sentimental way to illuminate an intersection.
We pulled into a restaurant area where we could all buy tickets for Ottoman style food (kebab variations, of course) and softdrinks. By this time it was almost midnight.
Then we got back on the bus and drove towards Sanandaj. I was getting tired after this long journey sitting up, and after that exasperating hotel in Tabriz where almost noone spoke English but everybody talked to me in an incomprehensible dialect of what they said was "Turkish".
I had called the most expensive hotel in Sanandaj, Lonely planet said, this would cost a steep 20 $, because I felt reckless enough to splurge and just get some sleep and some comfort among people who spoke a language I could understand. We arrived at 5 in the morning. I unboarded, and found a taxi with a friendly looking old Kurd in it. He took me to said hotel but lo- all the staff was asleep on couches and chairs in the lobby, and when one of them did open the door he told me, the price was now 32$. (2.7 million rial instead of 2) I was upset, he ignored the fact that I had made a reservation, had been told a price, and when I did not give up, told me nonchalantly:"Anyway, you have to check out at 12noon and pay the whole night, so I think, too expensive for you." which is the Oriental way of pointing someone towards the door. i know this from Japan and Turkey already.
Now it was going on 6am and I was really tired. The friendly old Kurdish taxi driver gestured that this hotel was far too expensive anyway and he would find me something considerably cheaper now. We drove into town, a long way and he stopped on the main street, got out of the car, clambered up some stairs and pounded noisily on another hotel's door. I heard a heated exchange between him and the hotel keeper who was shouting through the closed door, then he came back, shrugged his shoulders apologetically and said, they were full. Then he told me, that the first hotel was astronomically expensive, this one was much more reasonable but now he would find me something even cheaper, so I should not fret and take heart, everything would be alright. I prayed in my mind that he was right.
He stopped at another place, the same scenario, door banging with his fist, a shouted exchange and I could almost understand from the tone what he was saying in Sorani Kurdish to the owner:"Oh come on, you gotta take her in, we have been to this other hotel and they did not give her a room, then we went dow the road and he rejected her too, come on, man, have a heart for this poor woman, she's been traveling all night!"
Finally the owner agreed, stated a hugely overinflated price with a glitter in his eye and handed me a key. A room, at last! The room was oddly shaped, sort of like a narrow trapeze, I noticed the qibla sign on the wall, for people who need to know the direction of Mecca for their prayers. there were two simple beds, straggly curtains and a shower. I pulled back the sheet on one bed- and found a pubic hair in the middle of it. Ugghhhhhh! They had not changed the sheets! And the person before me had obviously been a man sleeping in the nude who did not shave, where a good Muslim should...
I closed the sheet in disgust and tried the other bed. The sheets were wrinkled but at least no hair in it. Oh well. By now it was light outside and I went to close the old dark red curtains. Not without taking in a view for a moment- a street, across the street an ugly brick wall, and on that wall, two huge posters- one of Ayatollah Khomeini, and another of Khamenei (i think it was, before he fell out of grace). I sighed and firmly shut the curtains into their bearded faces and went to bed.
The same morning, after a few hours of sleep, I went through the scarf procedure again which went a little faster now than in Tabriz, had another odd breakfast with a small plastic knife and disposable fork and plate (these men must be too lazy to do any housework! I thought. No dishwashing, they don't even change the sheets always,they throw away the dishes after use, they give you an old, musty towel washed too many times, and that only after asking...why don't they allow women to work in these hotels, they'd do a better job!)
So, out i went to look at the city. Sanandaj is quite green, spacious, a lit with bright sunlight. I liked it. I found a few shops along the street, also one that sold hijab broaches and hair bands (I needed one after I lost mine) and up the street, there even was a tea shop. I went inside. It had two long benches along the walls, with small tables in front of them. Here were many old men ordering breakfast and the waiter carried a number of tea glasses in his hands that he filled quickly and dished out to the tables like an assembly line, with quick practised movements. Most men were having a breakfast fry-up, consisting of eggs and tomatoes served inside a pan. I ordered tea, grateful to FINALLY get a proper glass of tea again and a place to sit down, saving me from having to wander the streets without rest, like it had been in Tabriz.
Suddenly I spotted a young man in jeans next to me who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. I asked him if he, maybe, spoke English? He did! And offered to help me. This was Edris, who became my faithful companion for the next three days, who would pick me up in front of my hotel, and walk me home and show me around and help me buy bus tickets and check out flight schedules, and call me taxis, and show me where a restaurant was where I could have dinner (by myself). He was a huge help.
One day we went to Asef mansion together, a house of a rich Kurdish family, aristocrats, I reckoned, who had lived there and who had now, mysteriously, disappeared, and their house had been turned into a museum of Kurdish culture. We looked at all the figures of Kurds in traditional costumes, doing work, spinning wool, carrying shovels, wearing salwar and wide cloth belts tied around their belly. We took pictures of the courtyard and of each other and of us together.
That evening he showed me that restaurant. And when i had finished my dinner, there appeared another young Kurd, in salwar, the traditional proudly worn Kurdish trousers, he was accompanied by friends and an Englishman, and asked me if i wanted to join them in their roaming around the city. We did, we walked down to the big square, they bought ice cream and mulberry juice, we sat on the rails and then they showed us a park which was barren and brightly lit with flood lights, and they told me, this had been their hangout before , the date spot of the city, where young couples would sit on benches and kiss and lie between the bushes. But the city council did not like this, so they had removed all the bushes and installed the great lamps to keep people from getting into mischief.
While we were sitting under the lamps a car stopped in the street, and a newlywed couple got out, she in her wedding dress and walked into the park. Taleb and his friends told me that this was where the couple had met, before the shrubs had been removed....
So I had another Kurdish friend and the next day Taleb met me up the street and invited me to visit his family. They lived in a nice house and their living room was covered in a beautiful thick Persian carpet, on which we sat and had lunch together. His sisters even removed their hijab and I did too, feeling shy about showing my hair, by now. Taleb was an English teacher, and therefore, his English was almost perfect. And he had that impish Kurdish humour that I so love.
Both of them remained friends with me during my entire trip and would take turns inquiring about my health, give me advice about where to go and what to see via text messages, chat with me at night when I was alone in my hotel room and they both sent me a vpn file as a present so that I could use facebook to upload my photographs and keep in touch with friends, since this was the only way to access many of the usual websites like yahoo.com etc. . Vpn files were in common use in Iran and one could even buy them in some of the internet cafes.
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