Global Wanderer

4/7/23 – 5/7/23

After a decent night’s sleep in Arg Hotel’s incredibly hard mattresses (great for supporting your back!), and a quick breakfast at the hotel – tomato omelette for me, an Iranian lentil dish for Dad – and we were off to our first stop of the day, the Pink Mosque. Named for the incredible pink-coloured tiles on its inside walls, the Pink Mosque was full of what appeared to be Iranian tourists, taking quick pauses between taking photos to kneel and pray. The light in the mosque comes in through the absolutely beautiful stained glass windows, and very much accentuated the pink on the walls. Certainly worth the visit!

Something that happened on around 20 separate occasions during our time in Iran was local people coming up to us, and either speaking their very very few words of English to us, or asking for a photograph (or both!). It seems that people are incredibly happy to have foreigners, particularly from the West, visiting their country. It also gave us an opportunity to talk to local Iranians about life in their country – which we tried to take full advantage of! At the Pink Mosque, we spoke to two women who told us that they loved Iran, but still wanted to move overseas for better opportunities. This time, we were the ones asking for a photograph – the women weren’t wearing hijabs and were quite proud of that fact, brushing off the requests from the (female) caretaker of the mosque – to show a bit of normal life in Iran. I won’t post their photos, but it was certainly a nice moment.

Next up, we walked towards the ancient Citadel at the centre of Shiraz. Before we got there, however, we came across one of the oddest things I have ever seen – a man on the street, with an angle grinder, shaping a set of dentures. The owner of the dentures, an elderly gentleman sat opposite, waved us over to say hello, and in broken English commented on the hilarity of the denture-carving. I did manage to take some photos, just so you can all share in the comedy!

Before reaching the citadel, we stopped off to visit one of the Qajar-era palaces that had been constructed in Shiraz. The garden, unlike some of the other palaces and mansions from that era, still had running water in its canals, and made for a beautiful spot of shade during the heat of the day, now approaching about 41ºC. One of the most fascinating parts of this particular palaces were the interior ceilings, which had all been painted in incredibly detail, depicting a variety of different scenes ranging from European countryside to Islamic architecture.

The palace we visited in Shiraz.

En route to the Citadel, we detoured through the Vakil Bazaar, located in the centre of the city, and built around an ancient caravanserai. Unlike its Tehrani counterpart, this bazaar was populated with locals purchasing fruit, vegetables, clothing, and most notably – spices. The sheer number of stalls showing off their gigantic sacks of different spices was amazing, and the smells were incredible. Iran is a producer of saffron, which means that the strands, more expensive than gold in Australia, cost a fraction of the price. There were spice shops that contained, at a rough guess, tens of thousands of dollars worth of saffron – but thanks to economic sanctions placed on the country by the US, most of that saffron gets sold domestically.

Bazaar – and one of the few shops in the whole country accepting Visa/Mastercard, thanks to some crafty payment rewiring!

Finally, we got to the citadel, an imposing fortress in the centre of town that once contained the whole city. It looked EXACTLY like the Ark of Bukhara, was from the same time period, and was a perfect reminder of the connection that the Silk Road provided in those days.

Before heading to our final destination for the day – the Shrine of Hafez – I made sure to try one of the local dessert specialties, saffron ice-cream, with frozen noodles and lemon juice. Yes, it sounds completely insane, and yes, it was incredibly delicious, and very refreshing. That definitely was not the last one I consumed on the trip!

On our walk to the Shrine, we encountered the Iranian riot police for the only time on our trip. There was a big gathering of people, waiting for a charity organisation to give out hampers – not your traditional hampers, but consisting of gas cookers, washing machines, and other appliances you might need in your home. Apparently, as far as we could tell, there were only 700 of these hampers to give out, and more than 700 people queuing up. I guess the riot police were there just in case things got out of hand. Luckily for everyone involved, there seemed to be no squabbling, and the police shuffled away on their motorbikes as soon as the event was over.

The Shrine of Hafez, the famous Iranian poet, is a popular destination for locals, who sit in the gardens and read his poetry. We saw a number of students doing exactly that, enjoying the slight afternoon breeze in the shade. Finally, we decided to head back to the hotel for a couple of hours – that evening, I had organised for Dad and I to take an Iranian cooking class in a local family’s house!

The Shrine of Hafez

After some intense driving through the backstreets of Shiraz, we finally found ourselves in one of the residential districts, at the base of a small apartment block. Up on level 3, we were greeted by Khatereh and her mother and sister, who’s apartment we were in, and who’d be teaching us how to cook some Iranian food! The women had decided to share their combined loves of cooking, languages, and tourism, and promote Shirazi culture, by teaching tourists how to cook local cuisine – an amazing idea! First up on our menu was Dopiaza Aloo – a potato and onion dish which went down an absolute treat. Our main course was a dish called Kalampolo Shirazi, which was essentially cabbage and other veggies, rice, and meatballs. There were several tricks to successfully pulling off this dish though! The meatballs had to be TINY – about 1cm cubed – and the cabbage had to be layered like a pyramid between the rice. Finally, for dessert, we made Shirazi Halva, which unlike traditional Middle Eastern halva, was a bright yellow colour on account of the copious amounts of saffron added!

My Dad, whipping up some halva!

This was an incredible experience, which we both very much enjoyed! Something I definitely wouldn’t have done on my own! Once we had said our goodbyes, we headed back to Arg Hotel for a decent night of sleep before our next long day of driving!