Menno.
Already over.
Unbelievable ... My already high expectations, which I had before, have been topped again!
I was able to get to know a largely unknown culture, an incredibly rich and exciting one.
I was able to experience the diverse landscapes - deserts, islands, mountains.
I got to know the rich Persian and Iranian history and its beautiful buildings. Blue could easily become my favorite color. The colors and shapes and patterns ... Sensationally beautiful!
But all this fades when you experience the Iranians themselves, the people. With so much warmth and genuine joy you have to cope first !!
And there was no situation in which that could have been unpleasant or inappropriate (assuming a certain openness of its own).
The personal encounters and discussions are the real key to the Iran experience. We also talk here, but not only, of Smalltalk. Often it is pleasantly easy to get down to business: the politics, the hijab (and the position of women in general) and much more. I will not go into too much detail here, but on personal demand, I like to tell more.
This is one of the reasons why you quickly gain confidence. One feels (and is) so safe when traveling ... At the latest after a week, I would have trusted everyone blindly. (Well, maybe not quite, even in Iran taxi drivers are taxi drivers, but even there the honesty rate is probably better than in the rest of the world :))
The Iranians have been in the last half century sometimes played badly - from the outside and from the inside anyway, because they are the first victims - but they cope with an incomparable friendliness and open-mindedness ... I can only advise, better earlier than later to travel there!
I myself can imagine that very soon. The country is just too big for four weeks. Time has not been enough for the west and northwest. Kurdistan in particular must be an outstanding experience, as well as the areas inhabited by the Aseri (Azerbaijanians) and the Gilan province on the Caspian Sea and the Elbrus Mountains. I am already looking forward to it!
The pictures today: random. (And thanks to Andi for some of them.)
