Loving the craziness...

We've found another internet cafe so I can write some more. Ben has been writing blogs and uploading them from his mobile but I am too slow at typing - MUST learn to use predictive text!

I've been remarking to Ben that I haven't felt angry at anyone since we get here and that's a great feeling! Although it's pretty crazy and in some ways like India, the people are incredibly friendly and have a brilliant sense of humour which eases every situation.

When we checked out of our hotel in Tehran, we stood at the side of a busy roundabout junction to hail a taxi. The way it works here is that you shout your destination through the open passenger window and the driver decides whether he wants to take the fare or not. If not, he just drives on. We were conspicuous because of our luggage and so it turned into a bit of a circus! - But the mood was totally light-hearted and it was then as I mentioned above, that I noticed that I haven't really felt any anger towards anyone since we got here. This might sound bad but anyone who has travelled in Asia will probably know what I mean. I actually didn't care how long it took as I was enjoying just standing there watching the mild chaos.

Several taxis pulled up, swerving and honking in their clapped out cars. On one occasion, a taxi stopped a short distance past us and the driver literally threw a family of women and children out of the car before gesturing that he would give us a lift. We were appalled and made it obvious that we were not going to take their place.The mother looked relieved and climbed back into the car!

Still, it was fun to watch how the taxi service works here - no queues - whoever gets their shout in first gets the lift! We found a taxi shortly after that and climbed into a dilapidated but cool car with sheepskin dashboard and exposed metal on the internal doors. Our 50-something driver was good looking in that dark swarthy way with leathery hands and a twinkle in his eye. We shared our Dutch honey licorice with him and he was fascinated with the flavour :-)

Sometimes it feel like being in a movie, (although we're only here a few days). We have literally only seen about 2 tourists since we arrived so we feel like we have the place to ourselves. Ben's going to tell you about our failed attempt to get to the beautiful thousand year old mountain village of Masuleh. Our final car journey had to turn back when we were less than 15km away due to lots of.......snow!! We'll attempt it again tomorrow.

Bye for now - khodah hafez!