Wednesday 19th June 2013.

Wake up in Tehran. Lazy morning, reading paper, drinking tea. A lot about the recent elections here. Bring coffee making stuff from car, and Hilde joins us on balcony. Natter. Order two taxis, as Ali will be our guide. We career through the traffic. The drivers are amazing, I think they must have eyes in the back of their heads. Stop for several photo opportunities. We visit the Golestan Palace. Tehran is not a very old city, and is the 39th national capital. Palace and treasures have world wide influences. Art, pottery that was similar to Wedgwood and Delft, gifts from Queen Victoria and Tzar Alexander. French furniture and Chinese vases.

Walk through working mosque to bazaar. Only saw a tiny part of it. Much cooler on inside that out. Bought something for home. Vibrant, colourful and teeming with people. Back outside we buy a frozen lemon juice drink, delicious. See man selling baby chicks and ducklings dyed florescent colours. He put them in a paper bag when sold. Hot and tired we head back.

A couple of hours later we head out to dinner. Witness two men fighting over a car bump, one had a stick. Our route runs parallel to the mountains, quite spectacular. Clutch on taxi smoking, so driver drops us at the bottom of a steep hill, and points upwards. We have the name of the restaurant written in Farsi, so we ask a taxi driver (green one as Ali insists upon), and eventually a waiter says we have found the right one. Walking up the hill was amazing, lights strung everywhere, stall keepers putting out their wares, cars crawling along. This is obviously a very affluent part of the city. We are all hungry, so fall silent as we eat. More kebabs, and not surprisingly Isabel has fish. Try to pay for over 20 minutes, leave money on table. Waiter comes running out, but not after us!!! Phew.

The parking is crazy, nowhere to turn easily, alarms and horns blaring, more cars and people coming up. Isabel stops to look at scarves. An old woman starts talking to her in fractured English. She insists on buying Isabel a scarf. “Why?” Because she wants her to always remember Iran. Eventually Isabel accepts, and cries. We hop into the green taxi with the helpful driver. When we get back, Ali said he had phoned the restaurant which was recommended, and we hadn’t eaten there!!!! Oh well, food was good anyway.