Iran itinerary!!!!

Very exciting. My comments in blue. Click on any picture for a larger view--pix will open in new window (yes, I did all this myself... truly, this blog entry may be considered a monument or temple to the goddess of procrastination...but if I don't get to work I won't be able to go at all. Now that's a sobering thought).

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Date	Program
Day 01 Tuesday, May 24 (3 Khordad*)	Late evening arrive Tehran Transfer to hotel - Check in Overnight: Ferdowsi Hotel - TEHRAN Here's a page about Tehran with pictures
Day 02 Wednesday, May 25 (4 Khordad)	Orientation session Carpet Museum (I'm a carpet junkie so this has me salivating) Manteau shopping (what the hell is this, I wondered at first--but I figured it out--a "manteau" is the coat-like garment commonly worn by women in Iran, i.e., this is when we buy something to wear, so we can get out of the tablecloths, shower curtains, or whatever we have wrapped ourselves in to be allowed off the plane)(yes, this is creeping me out, too, but see below**). Overnight - TEHRAN
Day 03 Thursday, May 26 (5 Khordad)	National Museum Meeting with Center for Sustainable Development & Environment (CENESTA***)(seems like there are a lot of meetings with NGO people...could be fascinating or tedious...I'll let you know) Return to Hotel Meeting with Women's Society Against Environmental Pollution (think I can go back to the museum instead?) Overnight: Ferdowsi Hotel - TEHRAN
Day 04 Friday, May 27 (6 Khordad)	Flight to Shiraz Walking tour of Old Shiraz including Narenjestan Nasir al-Molk Mosque (This place looks spectacular! Check out this whole page of photos). Visit with an English school - meet with students (this could be really interesting; maybe I'll be able to arrange for future pen-pal interactions with my future classes!) Nomads Bazaar Pars Museum Bazaar of Shiraz Hafez tomb Overnight: Parsian Hotel - SHIRAZ (ya think they maybe mean "Persian"?) (this sounds like a very long day!--a plane flight, a walking tour, a mosque, a school, two bazaars, a museum and a tomb... whew! Maybe Shiraz is a very, very small town...... )
Day 05 Saturday, May 28 (7 Khordad)	Drive to Persepolis (55 km, roughly 1 hour) Persepolis (Guided tour + free time) Lunch near Persepolis Naqsh-e Rostam (6 km from Persepolis) Return to Shiraz Overnight: Parsian Hotel - SHIRAZ
Day 06 Sunday, May 29 (8 Khordad)	Drive to Pasargad; the tomb of Cyrus the Great and the remains of his palaces Drive to Eqlid for a visit with Kuhi Sub-tribe of the Qasdhqai in their summering pastures (sounds like a highlight! frighteningly enough, here is the most extensive information source I found about this group)(Oh thank goodness, here's a better one--very interesting! Do you think I should write to the person who runs it? He requests correspondance, but that's a very odd hat he's wearing, but after all he's from the other side of the world...) Overnight nearby (Eqlid?) - Hotel TBD
Day 07 Monday, May 30 (9 Khordad)	Drive to Yazd (info here and here) Visit Fire Temple of Yazd – learn about Zoroastrian customs and beliefs (another highlight!)(Those are Zoroastrians on the left having a festival, and that's the God Ahura Mazda on the right) Stop at Mir Chakhmaq Complex Overnight: Yazd Tourist Inn - YAZD
Day 08 Tuesday, May 31 (10 Khordad)	Visit Jame‚ Mosque of Yazd Walk in the Old Quarter of Yazd Visit Zur Khane (traditional male exercise involving poetry, music and song) (this could be anything... suspense!) Overnight: Yazd Tourist Inn - YAZD
Day 09 Wednesday, June 1 (11 Khordad)	Dowlat Abad Gardens Apparently Yazd is "famed for its myriad wind towers that provide natural air conditioning for the inhabitants." Above is one, in the gardens. Towers of Silence (Zoroastrian place for remains of the deceased) (like the Tibetans they have crows eat the dead; it's not as gory as it sounds....say, are there Zoroastrians still around? I didn't know that!) Drive to Esfahan Overnight: Ali Qapu Hotel - ESFAHAN (aka Isfahan)
Day 10 Thursday, June 2 (12 Khordad)	Drive to Esfahan (this sounds like a typo; aren't we there already?) Lunch Check in at hotel Walk down Charbagh Ave. to Si-o Seh Bridge Meeting with Shahrzad at her home to discuss "Women and Islam in Iran" (If we get to meet Scheherazade, I'd rather hear her tell stories from "Arabian Nights"...that's probably an offensive comment, but I can't help finding the name romantic) Overnight: Ali Qapu Hotel - ESFAHAN

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Day 11 Friday, June 3 (13 Khordad)	Naqsh-e Jahan Square including Royal Mosque... ...Lotfollah Mosque... ... and Ali Qapu Palace (not shown) Freetime in Bazaar of Esfahan Meeting with Ayatollah Emami (intriguing) Overnight: Ali Qapu Hotel - ESFAHAN
Day 12 Saturday, June 4 (14 Khordad)	Chehelsotoun Palace Vank Armenian Cathedral (wow, can't wait to see this) Lunch in Armenian Quarter (will it be like Glendale, CA?) Si-o Seh Bridge Jame' Mosque of Isfahan Khaju Bridge Tea Break at the traditional teahouse under Jubi Bridge Overnight: Ali Qapu Hotel - ESFAHAN
Day 13 Sunday, June 5 (15 Khordad)	Drive to Tehran via Kashan Abyaneh village Tabataba'i House Continue to Tehran Overnight: Ferdowsi Hotel - TEHRAN
Day 14 Monday, June 6 (16 Khordad)	Reza Abbasi Museum Meet with group of musicians and hear live performance Glassware and Ceramics Museum Dinner at a local restaurant in Darband Overnight: Ferdowsi Hotel - TEHRAN
Day 15 Tuesday, June 7 (17 Khordad)	Drive from Tehran to the Caspian (we get to see the Caspian Sea??? It won't just be a blob on a map anymore...here's an interesting page listing everything you ever wanted to know about the Caspian Sea) via the outskirt of Mt Damavand and a visit to the spectacular field of red poppies in bloom Arrive in Sari in afternoon Free time to walk around the town Evening: Traditional Mazandarani concert Overnight Sari - Hotel TBD
Day 16 Wednesday, June 8 (18 Khordad)	Meet with Ms Tavakoli and her NGO "Mozandaran Crane Society" (apparently this is where Siberian cranes come in the winter... but it won't be winter so we see the Crane Lady instead of the cranes...did you know cranes can live to be 83?) Lunch Drive Kandeloos Evening Free Overnight Kandeloos - Hotel TBD
Day 17 Thursday, June 9 (19 Khordad)	Visit the museum of local traditional antiques and handicrafts Visit a factory of medicinal plants (what do you suppose this is?) Lunch at the factory restaurant (will we eat medicinal plants?) Drive to Tehran (our third arrival in Tehran, so it will seem like old hat by then--can you imagine? On June 9, less than 2 months from now, Teheran will seem like old hat?) Overnight Kandeloos - Hotel TBD (maybe a typo, since we just drove to Teheran?)
Day 18 Friday, June 10 (20 Khordad)	Free time for packing or last minute shopping (now is when you buy a carpet, and the people who bought one on the first day cry because they paid triple)(Actually I hope to check out the archeological museum...) Overnight: Ferdowsi Hotel - TEHRAN
Day 19 Saturday, June 11 (21 Khordad)	Departure (waaaaah!)

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* Khordad is a month in the Persian calendar, introduced in 1925 and apparently used in Iran and Afghanistan today. More info here.
**Here's a site that tells you what to wear, and here's an interesting passage from "The Ends of the Earth":

Women in Tehran stare you in the face. their eyes meet you dead-on.
Cairo has little of this, and Istanbul much less than Tehran...A male
journalist could go, for example, to Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, even to
Pakistan, and be lectured at length about "the increasing role of women in
public affairs"...and yet, when I entered a restaurant in these countries,
I would encounter only men eating their grilled meat. Women were rarely in
sight, and usually confined to the 'family' section behind a screened
partition. In Iran, women could always be seen in restaurants, and were
always approachable. In Iran, a traveller communicated with both sexes,
not just his own. In Iran, you could point a camera at a woman and she
would smile. If you did that in Pakistan, the woman would run away and a
man might throw a rock at you. In Iranian homes, even lower-middle-class
homes, where women remained in chador, women still talked to you,
questioned you, and did not retreat.

Ok, granted, "better than Pakistan" is still not great, in terms of women's status....but that's interesting anyway.

*** CENESTA actually sounds like a really interesting organization. Here's an excerpt from their website, which coincides with what I've read from history (i.e. it's not just post-revolutionary frothing at the mouth):

CENESTA is the first non-governmental Organization born in Iran just after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Before the Revolution, it was next to impossible to register a not-for-profit Organization in Iran even though the law gave the citizens the right to do so. Any one who dared think of something not-for-profit was suspect. A group of citizens getting together dedicated to a social aim? That was considered outright dangerous! CENESTA was thus born out of the concern of a group of activist scientists and citizens who were concerned that development in Iran as well as other parts of the Third World needed its own patterns and models that should not be based on imitation of the West. Indeed this would have been anathema to the state founded by the Shah's father, who built the very edifice of his dictatorial government on the fundamental precept that development was Westernization itself, and had it has to be forced down the throats of people...

For those of you who are worried (apparently, all of you) here are various account of tourists' good experiences in Iran:
Iran's Solar Eclipse and Much More
Some Brit's blog - lots of photos & description; a bit pompous, but recent & thorough; helps me know what to expect. Sample:

...a small tea house has been built over an octagonal pool in which a cloud of grey fish (carp?) swim in the crystal blue current. We have ice cream laced with lime and cherry juice, listening to dervish meditative music and watch people feeding Cheesy Wotsits to the fish.

That sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon. Better than compulsive blogging all friggin' day.

For entertainment, check this out... an online poll (unscientific of course) of Iranians, with 2477 votes about the future of Iran's government (you can also find other polls, addressing such questions as "Can Islam and democracy mix?" and "Who is all time Iranian Diva?" (more than 7000 votes on that one). It's on a site called "Iranian.ws," described as an "All-Iranian" news service for "Iran's Progressive Community." Very interesting....

Ok, Ok, I'm getting to work.

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