From Solmaz, A Little Iranian Humor

It's great to be back to my beloved cafe and to GoNOMAD. I got a message on Facebook from another Iranian friend named Solmaz who I met while I was there. She has no qualms about posting controversial pro-revolution materials, as indicated by this cartoon she posted.

Funny, when I was there her and many others told me they never pay attention to politics and don't vote. I think things might have changed.

Iran's Voters Re-Elect the Past, Many Claim Fraud

In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been declared the Presidential election's winner. The city took down the internet and blocked text messages, according to an AP story and protesters have been throwing rocks and making fires in the streets, tangling with black-clad police.

When I visited Iran in November, I asked many young people what they thought about their president, and the reaction was universal: We don't pay any attention to him. This uniform desire to ignore voting and politics contrasted with how bothered some of the young women were by the cruising morality police and the restrictions on freedom of dress and expressions of love with boyfriends. I pressed my friend Orchid, asking her if she didn't agree that voting against a fool like Ahmadinejad was worth the effort. "They're all rigged, it's all a fraud," she insisted.

Today's AP story said that the real leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomenei, has closed the door to any compromise with the opposition, who maintain that this election was rigged, and even the US has refused to accept the notion of a 62-34 million landslide victory for the incumbent.

I think back to my time in Tehran where I had time to walk the streets of North Tehran and our trip out into the desert where I got to see young people bask in the freedom of not wearing headscarves, talking freely, and holding hands with their partners. I read about Iran with an eagerness to see change, and hope that the Mullahs and backward-looking leaders are voted out. But then when I think about how steadfast the apathy was in the young people I met, I realize it will take a lot longer to see real change there.

Picnic Time at a Desert Fortress

The mosque in Aran, Iran, the complex dominates the dusty town, south of Qom the most holy city of Iran. We stopped at a caravansary, a fortress built 400 years ago to defend the camel caravans along this important trading route.

Iranians took the Friday holiday to picnic on the grounds, and this man offered me a puff from his hubbly bubbly as he enjoyed time in the sun.

A Day in the Desert: A Chance to Get Away

We left the hotel at five am yesterday, to meet a bus full of Tehranians and take an excursion out into the desert. The bus rolled through the light traffic of central Tehran and out into an exquisitely flat open road, unbroken by anything except distant hills, we were bound for the salt lake southeast of Tehran.

Because of the early hour, we were groggy, and relieved at about 8 am when we pulled into a roadside restaurant for breakfast. This meal is the hightlight of the cuisine here, it includes the salty feta cheese, bowls of steaming lentils, pita bread and a variety of egg dishes like fritatas. I didn't come here for the cuisine, but didn't realize that we'd have an identical meal every dinner, so the breakfasts have become favorites.

In the small city of Aran, the biggest building for miles around is the elaborate walled mosque compound, at night lit up in bright green. In front of the mosque is a graveyard, with upright plaques that memorialize the war dead from the Iran-Iraq war. We changed to an older beat-up bus for a 60 km ride over a desert road. A man leading a pack of camels crossed in front of the bus, and big trucks zoomed by, trailed by clouds of dust.

We got a chance to walk a salt lake and at the end of the trip we found ourselves at sunset sitting on high dunes, the sweep of the brown sand undulating, and the light perfect for photos. I sat with a young woman in the tourist business who said she wished that politics didn't interfere so often in people's lives. I could sense that she, like many of her contemporaries, are growing weary of life dictated by Mullahs based on ancient traditions. None of the young people I met care about politics, or listen to the Ayatollah's Friday night speeches. "We watch movies, read novels, drive around, but we don't care about them," they told me again and again.

I told her that since there are so many more young people here and the leadership is very old, things would inevitably change and loosen up. She can't imagine that, but seemed hopeful that someday no one will be telling her what to wear, how to live, and blocking Facebook and Myspace on Iran's internet.

A Treasure Trove of Little Drives

Kent and I were up very early yesterday, to drive into Manhattan and attend our annual visit with the heads of 35 European tourism groups. It was the usual meet and greet, kiss on the cheek, speed-dating kind of affair, where you have 15 minutes to talk to each country, hotel group or attraction about why you think you'd like to write about them.

Since GoNOMAD was founded in 2000, the internet stone-age, we are considered a high-value target. We have also worked very hard to produce story after story, so no one in the room had ever been burned by us. That gives us an easy familiarity with all of the boards, and led to the gifting of many of those little data drives that are so handy, and which come full of photos and text about destinations. I think I've got at least six of 'em and I love it, you just can't own enough of these little treasures.

It was like halloween for adults as the drives piled up in our bags. So far the trips that seem the most likely are to Portugal's Algarve, to the Czech Republic's Monrovia region, and maybe a return to the wilds of Hungary. France, we hope will also continue on our travel schedule for 2009.

It was wonderful to read the dozens of replies I got after sending out word of my trip to Iran later this month. People were positive, not full of fear, and had some interesting comments to say about this most interesting trip. Travelers who I saw at the show were universal in their shared desire to join me, others like my dad gasped long sighs, expressing dismay.

I've Been Invited to Iran

Ahm-ma-dina-jad. Ahm-ma-dine-ijad. I used to say this over and over again, walking through Cindy's house. Ahm-ma-dina-jad, I wanted to learn how to say it. I better get it right, because I just got invited to visit Iran later this month.

I have always wanted to see Persia, see the famous land of poets, and see the city of Shiraz. I Our tour will include the International Tour Operators Convention, to be convened in Tehran to showcase the country's tourism opportunities. I am going with a large group of journalists organized by Thomas Steinmetz, the man in Hawaii who publishes eTurboNews.com

We will be staying in '5 star hotels', and the invite reads

We hope you will discover the hidden potential of Iran's Tourism industry, its rich culture and diverse nature. We invite you to a country with a long history and rich cultural heritage.'

I am sending Kentski to Ireland for the culinary trip I was going to take, glad that he can go and cook in my stead. Iran. Wow, it is both exciting and a little scary. But hey, I bet people there will be gracious and interested, and much more friendly than I can imagine sitting here.

Iran Says "Death Penalty for Bloggers" with New Law

I read in Global Voices today that the Iranian Parliament is considering a bill that would put bloggers in the same category as rapists, murderers and thieves and make them eligible for the death penalty.

The bill would 'toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society' and that 'establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy' would be added to the long list of crimes punishable by death. In this cartoon, the woman is being told 'don't worry we will execute you legally."

According to the article, Yemen has also threatened to file lawsuits against websites for 'harming national interest, and suggesting death penalties for those who incite hatred.

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A Mirror Into the Mystery that Is Iran

Cindy gave me a fascinating book for my birthday in October that I recently finished. It's called Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran, by Elaine Sciolino. The author is a Newsweek and New York Times writer who has spent more than twenty years visiting Iran and has built up an impressive knowledge of this ancient place and of the Iranian psyche.

In the book we get a multilevel understanding of what makes the Persians tick, and why America has been enemy number one since 1979. She takes you into the private homes, where women and men sit together, sip alcohol, and even let their hair and arms (gasp!) show.

It's very difficult for an American to grasp the tight noose that is looped around the Iranian's necks. Stepping out in public showing a few wisps of hair, or a woman riding in a car with someone male who's not a relative, earns lashes and interrogation. Western music and anything alcoholic is cause for more lashes and grief.

One thing all Iranians love nearly as much as Allah is the poet Hafiz. "No other people I know takes its poetry so seriously," she writes, "...even the revolution and the creation of the Islamic republic could not eradicate that unique sense of Persianness that goes hand in hand with the poets who extolled the virtues of beauty, love and bravery."

She said everywhere she goes in Iran, she hears poetry. If there were a contest between reciting the Koran in Arabic and reading memorized poetry in Persian, the poetry would win out.