Restless Me - The Journal of World Travel

"They will kill you, you know."

As he handed me my plane ticket to Tehran, the Turkish travel agent said this to me as casually as if he were a waiter announcing the specials for the evening. This was not the first time that I had heard some variation of this theme.

When I first told people I planned to travel to Iran on my own in 2001, most looked at me as if I were announcing my plans to vacation underneath a highway overpass. In fact, I did not actually know the reason I was going; I simply knew that I had to go. And since, even to me, this sounded like the set up to a Very Bad Idea, I offered explanations that I thought would be acceptable to most people: that I was interested in the history or in the culture of the country. All of which were true, and none of which were really the reason.

But, if anyone had doubts about my sincerity in going to Iran, they had only to see what I went through to get a visa. The Iranian government is notoriously stingy in granting visas to three categories of travelers: independent travelers, single women and Americans. I happened to be all three.

After several months of bureaucratic gymnastics in the U.S., I arrived in Istanbul, Turkey, where I was to pick up my Iranian visa. There I was told my visa authorization number was invalid. Several days, many international phone calls, and repeated treks to the Iranian consulate later, I finally received my new, and allegedly valid, visa number. I hurried to the consulate only to find the doors closed. I tried persuading the guards to let me in, but to no avail.

Alas, bureaucracy is a bit like quicksand; it is best not to directly struggle against it, but look for a branch, a hand, or anything that will pull you out, and when you spot it, grab on with all your strength. Determined not to leave empty-handed, I slumped against a wall and did not move. Finally, after a half hour of this, one of the guards took pity on me and unlocked the doors. I had hold of my branch.

That was how I found myself on a midnight flight from Istanbul to Tehran, watching an overhead monitor track the plane's progress. I watched with both excitement and apprehension as the black flight path arched across the map until it touched, then crossed, into Iran.

- - - - -

Tehran is not, to put it as politely as possible, a city that will likely ever grace the glossy cover of a travel brochure, as the chance of getting black lung disease is not typically considered a selling point for tourists. The pollution does not look so much as if it had arisen from the city, but rather, as if it had been poured from above and was settling in for the duration between the unevenly-spaced teeth of the city's concrete buildings.

The first thing I did in Tehran was purchase a manteau, a long, loose trench coat type of garment that, along with a head scarf, satisfies the requirements of "hejab" -- the Islamic dress code that is required for all females over the age of seven in Iran. While women may also wear a chador -- a black, all-encompassing tentlike cloth -- most women, especially in the cities, choose to wear a manteau.

I purchased a plain, dark blue, tea-length manteau made of a light cotton fabric that, in an apparent nod to the secular fashion of the 1980s, had shoulder pads sewn inside and a scooped neckline. I put my hands through the cuffed sleeves that hung slightly below my wrists and into the pockets.

Nearly everyone that I met in Iran asked me what I though of hejab. "It is hot," I answered as diplomatically as I could. And it was. At the end of the each day in the hot desert of southern Iran, I found a constellation of salt across the back of my manteau from my evaporated sweat. It also proved to be, at times, a source of comfort. As my internal compass points aligned roughly with "lost," "hopelessly lost" and "curled-up-in-the-fetal-position lost," the sight of a group of women in their chadors, moving together with a common cloth liquidness like a school of fish, was a relief, their presence a guarantee of both safety and assistance.

And although I had to comply with the requirement to wear the hejab, there were other restrictions whose practical enforcement was more lax. One of these was that Americans traveling in Iran must be guided at all times.

I was able to skirt this regulation by telling my guide that I had to visit the family of a friend I had in the U.S. My guide insisted on getting his friend, a cab driver, to drive me to my make-believe destination. To my surprise and relief, there was actually such an address. However, as luck would have it, the fake address turned out to be a house that was, like much of Tehran, undergoing major reconstruction. Scaffolding hung over much of the house and several windows were missing.

The cab driver looked at me doubtfully and asked, "Are you sure this is the right address?" I assured him it was and got out with a cheery wave. But, he did not leave, as he had been given instructions to see me through the door.

I fussed and fidgeted with the straps on my backpack, carefully adjusting straps for which I never had any use, but whose precise length and location were now of utmost importance. After several minutes of meticulous backpack grooming, the taxi driver finally gave up and left.

I waited a few moments and then took a cab to the bus station. I decided to take whatever bus happened to be leaving first. It turned out to be a bus going to Esfahan, a city approximately seven hours south of Tehran. Next