Visas have arrived!

Ben's Iran visa
Originally uploaded by rastapopolos

Contrary to expectations, applying for a visa was a very straightforward business. The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran on Mount Merrion Avenue in Dublin processed our applications in less than one day. The cost was €50 each. More information on how we filled out our visas shortly.

It's also possible to apply for your Iran visa online - this isn't the approach we took and I have no idea how successful this approach is.

US policy, the election and Iran's nuclear capability

Back in June, John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the UN stated that Israel will most likely attack Iran's nuclear facilities between the presidential election and the swearing-in of the new president:

"The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations.

They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the election."

A 2007 article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quotes Brigadier General Giora Eiland, a member of the Institute for National Strategic Studies:

"Even if, at the end of the day, Israeli jets are going to carry out, or execute, this attack, it might be perceived - and rightly - as an understanding between the United States and Israel."

Article IV The United Nations' Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) recognizes "the inalienable right of sovereign states to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." However, Iran was found to be non-compliant with its NPT obligations in an unusual non-consensus decision because it "failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time" to report aspects of its enrichment program.

The report which resulted in this decision states:

"To date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to [...] were related to a nuclear weapons programme. (My italics.) However, given Iran’s past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the Agency is able to conclude that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

Hardly a basis for the United States' client state in the region to attack Iran's nuclear installations, nothwithstanding the furore over Ahmedinejad's mistranslated pronouncements about Israel.

Comparing travel insurance policies

Picking a travel insurance policy for Iran is a bit trickier than choosing one for your average holiday destination; here are a few that I've had recommended to me, that I've used before or that I'd consider using for a trip like this.

• Trailfinders Travel Insurance
• AIB travel insurance
• VHI travel insurance
• SportsCover Direct

I'll report on which one is best for our purposes soon.

Itinerary: Part 1

Planning the itinerary has fallen into my hands; so far it looks like this:

• Tehran - ugly concrete, crazy traffic, outstanding museums, fabulous palaces.
• Qom - Ayatollah Khomeini's birthplace; the beating heart of hard-core Shia Islam.
• Isfahan - the sublime Imam square and stunning mosques.
• Shiraz - the cultural soul of Iran; ornate mausoleums, ancient mosques, gardens and palaces.
• Yazd - a peaceful mud-brick town on the edge of two deserts.

...and maybe Bam, but that's a bit too near the Afghanistan and Pakistan borders for comfort. We'll see how the situation looks when we're there.

Travel in health

Aisling and I dropped into our local Tropical Medical Bureau this morning to get our jabs. By pure chance the doctor who administered our jabs was born in Iran. He left the country in 1983 and is less than complementary about the theocratic regime. I mentioned the meddling done by America to protect its oil interests (in particular, the CIA coup against Prime Minister Mossadeq - more on that later) but our doc insisted that Iranians can't blame foreign influence for the state of the country - he reckons they've brought the current system upon themselves. I didn't even feel the needle go in.

The guide book indicated that we need inoculations for diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio and hepatitis B, but we only needed a typhoid jab (which cost €36.00, plus the €40 consultation fee.) Our doc also prescribed two courses of the antibiotic Flagyl in case we get a dose of some bacterial infection. Hope we won't need it.

Other than that, the usual rules apply; don't drink the tap-water, peel fruit, only eat cooked food, don't eat salads or food that's been cooked and left to cool. Second nature to old India hands like Asho and me.

Change money part 1: Credit cards and traveller's cheques

Due to international sanctions, traveller's cheques and credit cards are useless in Iran; only dollars and euro are accepted, and only then in a small number of banks and a smaller number of branches of those banks. Once inside a bank that will change money, it'll be a good half-hour of queueing and endless form-filling before I'll get to see my Iranian rials.

The rest of the time I'll have my readies stashed about my person - not a prospect that fills me with delight. At least Aisling will have her gown as an extra layer of protection against pickpockets.

What we're reading, part 1: "Shah of Shahs"

Shah of Shahs - Ryszard Kapuscinski

I'd picked up this book on the recommendation of a friend, Fiona, before Aisling and I decided to visit Iran. I saw the book in Fiona's reading stack. It caught my attention because Kapuscinski had recently died. Fiona let me know just what a powerful writer he was and recommended this particular book to me.

It's a slim book, written almost like a meditation. Kapuscinski sits in his hotel room, in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He brings the reader on a journey through the previous few years of Iranian history.

The Shah attempts to buy his country into modernity by profligate spending on military and petrochemical hardware and contracts to foreign specialists. The ordinary people of Iran see no benefit from any of this; they are cowed into submission by the vicious secret service. Disenchantment grows and grows, spurred on by the violence the Shah uses to suppress the population. Politicised Imams are the rallying point, and it's they who take the reins of power as the Shah's regime collapses and he and his family flee Iran.

What we're watching

There are plenty of fascinating documentaries about Iran. Two that Aisling and I have found especially interesting are Transsexual in Iran (aired on BBC2 earlier this year) and Prostitution behind the Veil (aired on BBC4).

Transsexual in Iran opens with the following text: "In the Islamic Republic of Iran, sex change operations are legal. Homosexuality is punishable by death." Two young men who are planning to have sex-change operations open themselves up to the film maker. During the course of the documentary, it becomes distressingly clear that these two young men are not transsexuals, but simply gay - yet they don't describe themselves as such. In order to be allowed physical fulfilment, they subject themselves to the physical ordeal of gender re-assignment. A top-ranking mullah pronounces that because the Koran makes no mention of sex-change operations, the procedure is permitted by Islam. Homosexuality, on the other hand, clearly condemned in the Koran, is a capital offence.

Prostitution behind the Veil covers the lives of two heroin-addicted women, who undergo temporary marriage (permitted under Sharia law) in order to sleep with their clients. They bring their children with them. The film was made by a Swedish-Iranian director. Powerful stuff.

Flight times change...

Just got notification from Trailfinders, our travel agent, that the departure times of our Amsterdam to Tehran flights have changed; this is quite a common occurrence for long-haul flights.

This alone is a good reason not to book you own flights online for a trip like this.

Trailfinders have kindly moved the Dublin to Amsterdam leg of the journey; we haven't had to lift a finger and there's been no penalty for changing the Aer Lingus flights to Amsterdam.

Breaking News

US state department removes North Korea from the "terrorist state" list - my first thought was: "maybe to focus attention on Iran?"

Looks like I'm being paranoid on that one - there's no mention of Iran on this context, except as one of entries on the US's list of states which support terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Learning the language

I reckon it'll be worthwhile to have a smattering of Persian while we're there; Persian is an Indo-European language, so it can't be that hard to learn, right? (...especially as I speak a bit of Dutch too).

I'd picked up Lonely Planet's Farsi Phrase Book and Teach Yourself Modern Persian, but I've found Pimsleur's Farsi to be the best of the lot. The lessons are well-paced and short. I was delighted to be able to understand a very simple conversation after half an hour of practice. It turns out that Persian grammar is a bit like Irish and the guttural 'kh' sound is just like the Dutch soft 'g'. I think it sounds quite posh.



No, I don't know what he's saying either - yet.

Why Iran?

Sixty-six days from now my partner Aisling and I head off to Iran for three weeks to escape Christmas. Why Iran?

Well, why not? It's perfectly safe for travellers. It's the birthplace of agriculture and sophisticated civilisation. It's also a regional power and the only country in the world with a majority Shia population. It's part of the medieval overland trade route between Europe and China.

Apart from those anodyne reasons, we're mainly going there to challenge our own assumptions about the country. Like you, we've been bombarded with media telling us that Iran is part of an axis of evil and is a belligerent power holding Israel to ransom with the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Iran is a schizophrenic country; think of the different feelings and impressions triggered by the two names for the country: Persia and Iran. One speaks of opulent riches, magnificent architecture, high culture; the other of a reactionary theocracy, grimy cities, fist-shaking bearded men and chador-wearing women.

Three weeks isn't much time to really get a feel for a place; ostensibly we'll be tourists, but I'm learning a bit of Persian and hope to get to understand the Iranian psyche a little. Aisling's interested in the challenge posed to her Western sensibilities of subsuming her personality under a veil.

This blog is as much about the preparation as it is about the trip and our reactions to it; over the next few weeks we'll be getting jabs, filling out our visas and firming up our itinerary. Of course, where possible, we'll blog from Iran.

Aisling and I have spent six months in India and a couple of months in Nepal, over various trips; we've been to Vietnam and Turkey and now we're open to a new challenge. We hope you'll enjoy coming with us on our journey to a country that all of us know about but very few of us actually know first-hand.