Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

After prayer service at the mosque, a proud dad grabs a photo of his children with his cell phone. Enlarge photo

Thirty years later, the former American embassy is still lined with political posters struggling to provide Iranians with an enemy. Enlarge photo

Being an American makes you the most popular kid in the village. Enlarge photo

Iranians see a world dominated by the USA and are told not to like it. Enlarge photo

“Death to Traffic!” Enlarge photo

I’m working in Iran, part of the “axis of evil” (as defined by my president) in a land whose own president leads chants of “Death to America.” This has me thinking about bombast and history.

Of course the word “axis” conjures up images of the alliance of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito that our fathers and grandfathers fought in WWII. Many locals in each country believe that each president maintains his power only by his ability to stir the simplistic side of his electorate with such bombast.

Bombast hogs the headlines, skewing understanding between the mainstream in each country. If the typical American knows anything about the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad (whose name I cannot pronounce), it’s his recent comments about gays and the Holocaust (which, I would imagine, was designed to shore up his political base). The buzz lately in Iran about the American election is what McCain (who famously rewrote the lyrics of the Beach Boys classic song, “Barbara Ann,” to become “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran”) or Hillary (who recently said she would annihilate Iran if it attacked Israel) would do if elected president.

And as I explore and experience this country, I can’t avoid the hateful images and slogans. Like our children start each school day pledging “allegiance to one nation under God,” Iranian kids chant hateful slogans against the Great Satan and its 51st state, Israel. Rather than marketing products to consume, billboards sell a political/military/religious ideology. They glorify heroes who died as martyrs, taunt the US, show the stars and stripes of Old Glory made of Stars of David and falling bombs, and so on.

I try to make sense of the fearmongering and billboard hate, which mixes with huge smiles and welcomes. People greet me with a smile. Invariably, they ask where I’m from. I often say, “You tell me.” They guess and guess, running through 9–10 countries before giving up. Finally I say “America” and they are momentarily shocked, thinking, “I thought Americans hate us. Why would one be here like this?” Their smile leaves their face. Then a bigger smile comes back as they say “Welcome!” or “I love America.”

In a hundred such interactions in ten days in Iran, never once has my saying “I am an American” resulted in anything less than a smile or a kind of “Ohhh, you are rich and strong,” or “People and people together no problem, but I don’t like your president.” It’s clear to me that Iranians like our president as much as Americans like Iran’s.

It’s ironic that in most countries these days, Americans find they’re better off keeping a low profile. But here, in a country I’m told hates me, my nationality has been a real plus — absolutely everywhere I’ve gone. By the way, our government guide has not stopped me from going anywhere or talking to anyone. We haven’t been able to film just anywhere, but I’ve been free to roam about on my own without him and have fun connecting with locals. And I have absolutely never traveled to a place where I had such an easy and enjoyable time connecting with people. Young, educated people speak English. Locals were as confused about and fascinated by me as I was about them.

I think that, from an Iranian perspective, Iran is to Hezbollah as the US was to the Contras. (Supporters of Israel and the Sandinistas would find both Hezbollah and the Contras evil.) Everyone here understands that the Iranian president is more extreme than their supreme leader, Khamenei (the Ayatollah Khomeini’s successor). However, the supreme leader is more powerful than the president. All over town, you see posters and quotes from Khamenei…never the president.

The Iranian president has a kind of Hugo Chavez notoriety around the West for his wild ideas: “Death to Israel,” and “The Holocaust didn’t happen,” and “We have no homosexuals” and so on. He is an ideologue. His ideas make sense to him as does his bombast. He believes that since Germany killed the Jews, Germany should now house them. He doesn’t see the rationale of displacing Palestinians to provide Israel a homeland because of Germany’s genocide against the Jews.

In our hotel last night, I saw a short news documentary on Al Jazeera. Even without understanding the language, the images spoke powerfully. They showed the towering American-funded wall being built today in Palestine concrete block by concrete block…literally blocking the sunshine from Palestinian communities and making them look and feel like corralled animals. Anyone watching this with an empathy for Palestinians (i.e. the entire Muslim world — a billion people) would be charged with angry emotions.

While the Iranian president solidifies his political base by saying “Death to Israel,” his unwavering policy is that when Palestine accepts the existence of Israel, Iran will too.

We stop at the former US Embassy, which hosted the 444-day-long hostage crisis still so profound in the minds of many Americans. (For many who are angry with me for visiting our “arch enemy,” that 30-year-old media circus remains the defining event in their mindset toward Iran. It seems that because of this national humiliation, they consider it unpatriotic for a citizen like me to come here as an ambassador of understanding and goodwill.)

Our guide is almost proud to let us walk the long wall of anti-American murals. He encourages us to film it, making sure we know when the light is best for the camera.

As a gang of revolutionary students captured the world’s attention by insulting the US, this was a great moment for Iran. But that was 30 years ago — and today, most Iranians weren’t even born yet, and they seem happy to let the murals fade in the sun.

As we were struggling to drive away in a horribly congested street, our guide made a telling aside. He declared, “Death to traffic.” Then he said, “Because we can do nothing about this traffic, we can all say ‘Death to Traffic’.” Did he mean kill all those drivers that were in our way? Does Iran really mean death to the US and Israel? Or is it a mix of international road rage, fear, frustration — and the seductive clarity of a catchy slogan? This quirky cultural trait might be worth looking into and trying to understand.

All I’ve got to say is, “Death to hatred and militarism based on misunderstanding, fear and national pride.”

(By the way, I was in Iran for ten days earlier this month and have so many ideas to report on that my entries are lasting longer than my trip. While I will continue reporting my Iranian experiences for a few more days, I am no longer there. From Iran, I flew to Italy to continue my research trip, which will be followed by Germany and Paris before flying home in mid-June. Thanks for traveling with me via this blog. — Rick)

As everyone bowed in prayer, they revealed security soldiers and a Death to Israel poster. Enlarge photo

Isfahan’s great Imam mosque is both a tourist attraction and a vibrant place of worship. Enlarge photo

After the service, the cleric was eager to talk with us. Enlarge photo

We were in Iran for one Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, and made a point to go to a prayer service.

Filming in a mosque filled with thousands of worshippers required permission. Going behind the scenes at the mosque to explain our needs with administrators there, it hit me that this Islamic Revolution was the equivalent of a communist takeover. (It seemed power was maintained by placing partisans in key positions.) But the ideology they were protecting was not economic (as in the days of the USSR), but religious.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who, like the artist formerly known as Prince, has a name I cannot pronounce) has inspired a fashion trend in Iran — simple dark suit, white shirt, no tie, light black beard. To get permission to film, we entered a mosque administration office where all the men we encountered dressed the part and looked like the president.

To video the service — which was already well under way — we were escorted in front of 5,000 people praying. I felt self-conscious, a tall blond American tip-toeing gingerly over the little stones men place their heads on when they bend down to pray. As my brain wandered (just like it sometimes does at home when listening to a sermon), I felt all those worshippers were looking at me rather than listening to their cleric speaking. Planting our tripod in the corner, we observed and filmed.

I closed my eyes and let the smell of socks remind me of mosques I’d visited in other Muslim countries. I pulled out my little Mecca compass, the only souvenir I’ve purchased so far. Sure enough, everyone was facing exactly the right way. Watching all the worshippers bow and stand, and chant in unison, at first seemed menacing to me. Then I caught the eye of a worshipper having a tough time focusing. He winked. Another man’s cell phone rang. He answered in a frustrated whisper as if saying, “Dang, I should have turned that thing off.” The mosaics above — Turkish blue and darker Persian blue — added a harmony and calmness to the atmosphere (just as our guide had explained earlier).

I realized that the Muslims I’d seen worshipping on TV may have been edited by film teams with an agenda to make the fervent worship of non-Christians look threatening. I made a point to see it as if it were my own church just north of Seattle.

What was intimidating was the need for soldiers to stand guard, standing like statues in their desert-colored fatigues. When the congregation stood, you didn’t notice them, but when all bowed, the soldiers remained standing, a reminder that the world was dangerous…especially in mosques. I asked our guide what a brightly painted mural above the worshippers said. He answered, “Death to Israel.” (The topic of my next entry.)

Except for the troubling injection of politics, I was struck by the similarities of this worship service: the too-long sermon, the “passing of the peace” (when everyone greets the people around them), the convivial atmosphere just after when people line up to shake the hands of the cleric, and the fellowship as everyone hangs out in the courtyard. On our way out, I shook the hand of the young cleric — short, slight build, trim Islamic Revolution—style beard with a tight white turban, big teeth and a playful smile.

In the courtyard, a man hit the branches of a mulberry tree with a pole as kids scrambled for the treasured little berries. The cleric with the big smile engaged me in a conversation—we joked about separation of mosque and state, and how it might help if his president went to my town for a prayer service and my president came here. Esfahan TV was televising the prayer service. Their crew saw us here and wanted an interview. It was exciting to be on local TV. They asked why we were here, how I saw people, why did I figure there was a US-Iran problem (I pointed to the “Death to Israel” poster for starters). They fixated on how I’d spin my footage and if it would actually be aired. Throughout our trip, we found people assuming we were collecting images to be edited in a negative way to show Iran as scary.

Leaving the mosque, we considered the clips we just shot and pondered how they could be cut and edited to appear either menacing or heartwarming — depending on our agenda. We considered how what we had just shot could be edited with guerillas leaping over barbed wire and so on to be frightening, and how our film crew would instead focus on the men with warm, cute faces praying with their sons at their sides, and the children outside scrambling for mulberries.

It occurred to me that the segregation of the sexes — men in the center and women behind a giant hanging carpet at the side — contributes to the edginess of it (and the fear and anger many Western Christians feel toward Islam). Then I considered how male-led Christian services could also be edited to look threatening. At important Roman Catholic Masses you’ll see a dozen priests — all male — in robes before a bowing audience. The leader of a billion Catholics is chosen by a secretive, ritual-filled all-male gathering of guys in strange hats and robes with chanting and flinging of incense. It could be filled with majesty or menace…depending on what you want to show and what you want to see.

When we visited this huge mosque the day before, all I had seen was a lifeless shell with fine tiles for tourists to photograph. An old man stood in the center of the floor and demonstrated the haunting echoes created by the perfect construction. Old carpets were rolled up and strewn about like dusty cars in a haphazard parking lot. Today the carpets were rolled out, cozy, and lined with worshippers. By the time we left, they were rolled up and strewn about again.

After the prayer service, we set up to film me across the vast square from the mosque. My lines were memorized and I was ready to go. Then, suddenly, the cleric with the beaming smile came toward us with a platter of desserts — the local ice cream specialty — like frozen shredded wheat sprinkled with coconut. I felt like Rafsanjani had just interrupted my work to serve us ice cream.

Enjoying his treat, we continued our conversation. He said Khomeini had charisma and if he walked into a room even me, a non-Muslim, would feel it. His successor, today’s supreme leader of Iran (whose power trumps the president’s) has much less of an impact on the people. Shiite Muslims might miss Khomeini like Catholics miss John Paul II.

For many Iranians what Americans would call “family values” trumps democracy and freedom. They choose a “Revolution of Values.” Enlarge photo

Imagine a society where all the women are nuns…and all the problems like Maria. Enlarge photo

As I settled into the plane flying us between two Iranian towns, the pilot announced, “In the name of God the compassionate and merciful, we welcome you to this flight. Now fasten your seatbelts.”

The Islamic Revolution is a “revolution of values.” People here tell me they support it because they want to raise their children without cheap sex, disrespectful clothing, drug abuse and materialism, believing it erodes character and threatens their traditional values. To conservative Iranians, America stands for all of the above. The people I’ve met here don’t want their culture to be like America’s. It threatens them as parents. It seems to me they willingly trade democracy and political freedom for a society free of Western values (or lack thereof), that it’s more important to have a place to raise their children that fits their religious values. I believe they would even endure a shock-and-awe–style American bombing for this — something tough for our leaders to get their heads around.

(Of course, there’s plenty of drug addiction, materialism and casual sex in Iran, but the sex and drugs are pretty well hidden, and the forces in power are fighting these vices the best they can.)

Sometimes you don’t see an excess in your own world until you find a different world without that excess. Traveling in Iran, it’s clear to me that in the US, our religion is freedom…and materialism. Just about everywhere we look, we are inundated by advertising encouraging us to consume. Airports are paid to drone ads on loud TVs. Magazines are beefy with slick ads. Sports stars wear corporate logos. Our media are driven by corporate marketing. In Iran the religion is Islam. And — at the expense of the economy — billboards, Muzak, TV programming, and young peoples’ education preaches the teaching of great Shiite holy men.

Still, I am impressed by how unreligious this famously religious place is. Unlike other Muslim cities I’ve visited, such as Istanbul and Cairo, there are almost no minarets breaking the skyline, and there’s no call to prayer. I’ve barely heard a call to prayer since we arrived.

In this theocracy, the women must stay covered. Trying to grasp this in Christian terms, I imagined living in a society where every woman is forced to be a nun. Seeing spunky young Muslim women chafing at their modesty requirements, I kept humming, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Pondering the time Pat Robertson ran for president — and had millions of supporters — I wondered what our own country would look like if he had won and dominated Congress. Many people would have been ecstatic, and many would have been oppressed. It seems to me that’s the state of Iran today under Ahmadinejad.

I asked my guide if, in Iran, you must be religious. He said, “In Iran you can be whatever religion you like, as long as it is not offensive to Islam.” Christian? “Sure.” Jewish? “Sure.” Bahá’i? “No, we believe Mohammad — who came in the seventh century — was the last prophet, and the Bahá’i prophet (Bahá’u’lláh) came in the 19th century. The Bahá’i faith is offensive to Islam. Except for that, we have religious freedom.”

I asked, “But what if you want to get somewhere in the military or government?” My guide answered, “Then you better be a Muslim.” I added, “A practicing Shiite Muslim?” He said, “Yes.”

I was greeted by smiles. When I explained where I was from, the smiles got bigger. Hooking fingers seemed to be human nature—we can be friends and can get along. Enlarge photo	Cars merge through major intersections without traffic lights as if that’s the norm. And, surprisingly…it works. Enlarge photo
10,000 rials is worth a dollar. While Washington made it on our one dollar bill, Khomeini made it on every denomination here. Enlarge photo	Women are covered yet beautiful. In a land where there is no cleavage, a wisp of hair can be ravishing. Enlarge photo
Locals find me quite interesting. Routinely I’ve looked up from my note-taking and seen people gathered, curious, and wanting to talk. Enlarge photo

After a few days in Iran, I can’t help but think how tourism could boom here if they just opened it up. There are a few Western tourists (Germans, French, Brits, Dutch) but they all seem to be either on a tour, with a private guide, or visiting relatives. Control gets tighter and looser depending on the political climate, but basically American tourists can visit only with a guided tour. I meet no one just exploring on their own.

Tourists are so rare and sights are so few and obvious that you bump into the same people day after day. Browsing through picture books and calendars showing the same 15 or 20 images of the top sights in Iran, I’m impressed by how we’ve managed to see, or are scheduled to see, most of them. The Lonely Planet guidebook dominates – it seems every Westerner here has one. It’s good.

Our guide makes sure we’re eating in comfortable (i.e. high-end) restaurants (generally in hotels). They say tap water is no problem, but I’m sticking with the bottled kind. I wasn’t wild about the food on my first trip. It’s much better now…but still ranks about with Norwegian cuisine in terms of excitement value.

Driving is hair-raising. For several days now we’ve been zipped smoothly around by Majid, our driver. To illustrate how clueless I am here, for three days I’ve been calling him “Najaf.” And whenever a bit of filming goes well and we triumphantly return to the car, I give him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Finally today he and our guide explained that I’ve been confusing his name with a city in Iraq…and that giving someone a thumbs up in Iran is like giving them the finger.

Majid drives our eight-seater bus like a motor scooter, weaving in and out of traffic that flows down the street and between lanes like rocks in an avalanche. At major intersections there are no lights – everyone just shuffles through. It works differently here than it would at home – people are great drivers here, and, somehow, it works. I think I’ll actually drive more aggressively when I get home. Adding to the chaotic traffic mix are the pedestrians, doing their best to navigate a wild landscape. Locals say when you set out to cross a big street, “you go to Chechnya.” I’m told that Iran loses 30,000 people on the roads (in cars and on foot) a year.

The money is complicated. There are about 10,000 rial in a dollar. (If you exchange $100 dollars you are literally a millionaire here.) Ten rial is called a tuman, and some prices are listed in rial, others in tuman…a tourist rip-off just waiting to happen. (I had a shirt laundered at the hotel for “20,000.” Was that in rial, i.e. $2? Or was the list in tuman, which would mean the service cost $20? It was hard to tell.) There are no coins and no state-issued large bills. Local banks print large bills to help local commerce. To tell a counterfeit, you rub the number with your finger – if it’s the real deal, the warmth makes the numbers disappear just momentarily.

Women are required to cover their hair with a scarf. Local women are expert at wearing them to show just enough hair to grab the eye. In a land where showing cleavage is essentially against the law, a tuft of hair above the forehead becomes the exciting place a man’s eye tends to seek out. Tourist women are also required to wear scarves. After appreciating the art of local women being provocative with their hair and scarves, the tourists’ efforts seem quite clumsy.

There are no urinals anywhere. I did an extensive search: at the airport, fancy hotels, the university, the fanciest coffee shops. No urinals in Iran. I was told that Muslims believe you don’t get rid of all your urine when you urinate standing up. For religious reasons, they squat.

Neckties are rarely seen, as they’re considered the mark of a Shah supporter.

Restaurants use Kleenex rather than napkins; there’s a box of Kleenex on every dining table. There is absolutely no booze or beer in public. While I keep ordering a yogurt drink (similar to Turkish ayran), our guide and driver enjoyed “malt beverages” – non-alcoholic beer that comes in beer bottles or cans.

Many times, while I’ve been sitting in the shade quietly reading or writing while the crew got the shots they needed, people have come up to me and curiously asked where I’m from and what we’re doing. I chatted with one young man who didn’t look as if he was particularly in compliance with the revolution. After we said goodbye, he thought about our conversation, returned and said, “One present from you to me please. You must read Koran. Is good. No politics.” The Islamic Revolutionist government has been in power for 30 years now; this man’s generation knows nothing else. But then, why should an evangelical Muslim be any more surprising/menacing/annoying than an evangelical Christian?