Arriving in Iran usually means getting into Tehran at 3-6AM in the morning after having a long stop-over flight from Europe and being quite destroyed the next day.
Nevertheless, I wanted to explore the city a little and so I decided to get myself out of bed and ready to go. But given my lack of knowledge about almost everything in Iran, I was a bit uncertain what exactly I need to wear. Playing around with a scarf and my cardigan a bit I finally decided to ask my Iranian flatmate if I can go out with what I’m wearing, and she laughingly replied “yes of course” and directed me to the grand bazar as a good tourist destination. So I took my cellphone with a downloaded map of Tehran and Google translate, got into my hiking boots and my waterproof jacket and was ready to look like worst German tourist.
Stepping out of the house felt exactly like mentioned above. I felt as insecure as you can feel while making my way down to the Grand Bazar. The headscarf was constantly in my way or fell off. This was especially scary when crossing a street in Tehran. It’s already a challenge by itself, but with your vision 20% reduced when turning your head, I saw myself being run over several times. Luckily most of the time there some savvy locals around who crossed the streets as if it was the easiest thing ever, and I sure followed them as closely as possible.
On the way to the bazar was a park where I decided to rest a bit before heading to there. Turned out I never found it, I thought the busy street in front of the bazar was the bazar already. On the plus side, as soon as you are there, nobody cares anymore what you are, they just care about if you are standing in their way or not. Beautiful. I started wondering around a bit to just keep myself awake until night time, when suddenly Saba stepped into my life. An outgoing, 21 year old photographer who had more problems with her scarf than I; she wore it so far back her head that it was almost more like an extension of a scarf than a headscarf and constantly fell down. Apparently, she made it her passion to meet as many tourists as possible and she had just decided to become my best friend.
I happily accepted her offer to show me around as she literally took me by the hand and navigated me through the different shops. When her mother and sister arrived she also excitedly invited me to her home for dinner multiple times, but as I wasn’t sure what to answer I politely ignored her offers until she stood right in front of me asking me to come to their home for dinner. I was bit puzzled and as I heard you need to play kind of a no – yes – no – yes game before you know if someone really means what they say I answered with a confused “uhm…. no…?” Turned out that wasn’t the correct answer as she just laughed and said “what no? lunch then?”
I took that answer and her enthusiasm as a “yes, I really want you to have dinner with us” and accepted the invitation. Next thing I know is I’m at their place with four people trying to accommodate me which was a bit overwhelming at times as an introverted German but they seemed happy to have me there.
After dinner they even took me to Tochal, the highest point of Tehran and one of the best views around Tehran. Unfortunately, it started to rain quite heavily and it got really late. On top of it, it was almost impossible to find a taxi back. They have a local taxi app in Iran, but for some reason no driver seemed to be able to get there. I guess either because we were on the furthest point away from the city center or because everybody wanted to escape the rain at once.
I started to feel really bad because the family went up there only because of me and now got soaked in rain. They on the other hand didn’t loose their cheer and were only worried about me wearing too little. At one point they even handed me their coat even though I heavily refused as they would just get soaked in water without it, but no chance. At the end I held the jacket in my hand trying to make it not get too wet but still didn’t wear it.
Finally, we got a taxi with an apparently cheerful driver as the girls laughed for almost the entire ride, and I was happy that we were finally in a warm place and they didn’t mind the hassle. When we said goodbye I had to promise them to come to their place for dinner the next day as well. At 3AM, I finally got into my bed and slept like a champ until the next day.
