persia

The Silk Road Journey Pt2: Magic Carpet Ride to Khiva

April 17, 2012 by Bino 11 Comments

We did not stay long in Tashkent before we started to make a move to one of the great silk road cities of Uzbekistan. Our first stop, and a personal highlight for me, was Khiva. The city is practically in the middle of nowhere, almost a thousand miles away from the nearest sea, lying between two deserts and lying close to the border with Turkmenistan. It is so remote that it’s an arduous 16 – 18 hour drive to the capital, Tashkent and the nearest city with at least a million people is two countries away, in Iran. It is impressive to think that this city was once part of the silk road – magic carpets could have been necessary to bring people here back then!

all that’s missing is a genie in a lamp and khiva could very well be another potential location for Aladdin

It is no surprise that this medieval desert city has been maintained very well despite the forces of time. Khiva itself is a city of 50,000 people. Though no longer as isolated as it used to be, we still had to take a 1.5 hour flight from Tashkent to the nearby city of Urgench, and then take a 1 hour car ride just to get there.

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The Real Iran Pt6: Winter Wonderland, Embassy Raids & Nose Jobs in Tehran

December 1, 2011 by Bino 10 Comments

bustling and modern Tehran

I could be fooled for thinking that I was in some other place. North America. Maybe… No, it looked more like I was in Europe. Yes, definitely more European than American. The houses, they looked chic and expensive… and very western. It was un-Asian, if there ever was such a thing. There were maple trees all around me, with leaves withering into shades of red and brown. It was also freezing cold, and fresh snow was on the slippery ground. I couldn’t help it; the Christmas spirit came rushing in and I imagined I was Bing Crosby humming “White Christmas.” Very ironic thing to do, for I was very much in Iran. Humming Christmas carols in this, my last day in the Islamic State was surreal. I didn’t care even when the other passers-by heard me. It was my last day here and that was to be my excuse. After 9 days of traveling, I finally made my way to Tehran, the frenetic and often misunderstood capital of this equally misunderstood country. And what a great way to end my trip than with this winter scene.

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The Real Iran Pt5: Kashan! Kashan!

November 27, 2011 by Bino 5 Comments

kashan skyline – windcatchers and water reservoirs competing for attention

By this time, we entered the second half of our trip and continued our way up north. It was time to say goodbye to the amazing city of Esfahan and proceed to a little but popular city in between Esfahan and the capital, Tehran. We took the morning bus to this city which is called Kashan, passing by more desert and arid lands. Of note were the nuclear power plants we passed by near a small town called Natanz. The other passengers on the bus were quite keen on pointing it out to me when we passed by it.

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The Real Iran Pt4: Esfahan – Half the World in a City

November 24, 2011 by Bino 15 Comments

reflections at the sheikh lotfollah mosque

After two days of wandering aimlessly in maze-like streets and surveying what looked like Aladdin’s Agrabah, it was time to make a move again. I left Yazd with both sadness and excitement. I really liked the city, and told myself that I’d return one day. But at the same time, I was looking forward to our next city, which everyone we met along the way had been raving about. There was this rhyme that a local had taught me, it was a Persian adage that goes: Esfahan Nesf e Jahan which means “Esfahan IS half the world.” To the unfamiliar, this may seem like a cheeky thing to say. But I later realized Esfahan is one of those places where you really have to be there to see it. Home to awe-inspiring mosques, palaces, gardens, churches and bridges, Esfahan is considered the masterpiece of Persia and widely considered to be – you better believe it – one of the world’s finest cities.

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The Real Iran Pt3: Yazd – An Oasis in the Desert

November 20, 2011 by Bino 13 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-VBgDGuKQM]

After spending two nights in Shiraz and taking that daytrip to Persepolis and Nagsh e Rostam, it was finally time to move on to our next city – Yazd. Sitting in the middle of the desert, this central Iranian city is known for its unique clay architecture which gives it a very storybook feel. I wouldn’t be surprised if the story Aladdin was set here. A six-hour bus ride away, I had a rough idea of how to get there from Shiraz but Antoine, a Frenchman we met during the Persepolis trip, told us how it’s common practice to ask the hotel to book bus tickets. This was great news, and saved us the hassle of having to buy them ourselves at the bus terminal.

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The Real Iran Pt2: The Biblical City of Persepolis

November 19, 2011 by Bino 2 Comments

Many countries have that one landmark which serves as the national symbol as well as its #1 tourist draw. As Angkor Wat is to Cambodia, Machu Picchu to Peru and Great Wall to China, in Iran that place is Persepolis. Over 2,500 years old, this former capital of the Persian Empire is emblematic of the strong Pre-Islamic heritage which this nation proudly carries. Way before associations with the “axis of evil” came about, it is Persepolis which people in the past two millennia have come to associate with Persia.

the gate of all nations

Some forty years ago when Iran was still under a secular government, a grand celebration with a lot of pomp and pageantry was held in Persepolis by the then Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to commemorate 2,500 years of Persian Civilization. The guest list included the who’s who in global politics at that time, and also comprised our then First Lady Imelda Marcos who represented the Philippines for the event.

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The Real Iran Pt1: Touchdown Shiraz – But No Wine?

November 15, 2011 by Bino 8 Comments

naranjestan garden

I had been looking forward to this trip since 2007 when my interest in traveling to Iran started. I had just traveled to Turkey earlier that year, and after finding it to be one of my best travel experiences, I vowed to see more of the Middle East next time. However, it did not materialize until four years later – I had constantly been putting it off in favor of nearer destinations. But this year, with all the uncertainty and the revival of the nuclear programme issue in recent months, I decided it was now or never. It had been pending in my travel list for far too long.

With only a limited number of days in Iran, I decided to depart from the usual practice that most travelers have of arriving and departing through Tehran. Fortunately, Qatar Airways started flying to Shiraz recently, which was the southernmost city in our trip so we could just make our way northwards and skip a potentially hazardous domestic flight. The actual flight to Shiraz from Doha turned out to be more like a short hop over the Persian Gulf, and before I knew it, I was in the waiting area of the airport terminal negotiating for the fare with the cab drivers. Despite all the horror stories I heard with the immigration procedures, I got my visa in a few minutes after presenting my reference code. Then, I was off to Shiraz!

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