On the road - The landscape in central Iran

At the end of the dry season, Central Iran is dusty. The mountains
seem to wear their own gauzy veil, only making themselves visible to
us close up. They are jagged, like rows of uneven monster teeth,
though the highest is only around 4000m (and formerly called Penis
Mountain in Farsi). When I asked the Nomads what sort of rock the
ranges are made of, they laughed, and said 'just rock'. The valleys
are flat and broad, with dry river beds snaking through some of them
in the dry.
The colour of the ground and the maintains is a faint beige, and the
sky is a constant pale blue. Like Australia, the vegetation, at least
at this time of year, is sparse and scrubby though small, ground-level
purple flowers can be found dotted around some of the sites we visit.
They are related to the saffron plant.
The dust irritates our throat and eyes, and we sneeze as we step into
it. The veil is at least useful as a filter when we're out walking,
but it must be unbearably hot to wear in Summer when temperatures in
Iran can reach 40-55 degrees celsius. Now, in autumn, it's a
comfortable temperature - perhaps mid to high twenties at the height
of the day, and chilly, but not freezing, at night. If we travelled
here in April it would be a very different landscape as the snow
thawed and re-filled the rivers.

Travelling in Iran as a woman

This trip was always going to be about challenging preconceptions. Half way through my holiday I can write that one of the greatest surprises about Iran has been what a pleasure it is to travel here as a woman. Not only have I felt absolutely safe wandering the streets of large and small towns, but we have been able to speak to both Iranian women and men - something our male travelling companions haven't really been able to do.

Regardless of gender, Iran is one of the friendliest nations on Earth. I've never felt more welcome in a country. In cities, towns and villages we have been welcomed by locals on the street, in cafes, shops and mosques. It's usually the older men - those over 40 - who initiate conversation, answering our 'Salaams' with 'Which country are you from?' We have learnt to pronounce Australia 'Or-stray-lia' (Gabrielle is particularly good at this) and, surprisingly, it was in Tehran where we have most surprised the locals with our excellent grasp of English.

But the women are also keen to talk. While the men openly greet us from their shops, the women tend to circle us shyly first, waiting some time before approaching us to speak. In Tehran, two young women giggled nervously near our group before trying to take a photo of us without our noticing and then shouting 'thank you for coming to our country!' At the same place, just outside the main Bazaar, a woman in her thirties approached our guide Reza to ask where we were from. Hearing his answer she then spoke to us in excellent English, explaining she was an English teacher and that her mother, who was next to her, made her learn English. She too wanted to know how we spoke such good English in Australia.

But probably our most touching experience was sitting in the women's section of the mosque in Shiraz. In one of the Shrines, two nomadic women and their three children came and plonked themselves down right opposite us to stare, smile and film us on their mobile phone. I think one of them was saying they were going to sleep there that night - the Shrine is open 24 hours a day - but we don't speak Farsi and they didn't speak English so our communal understanding was limited. I could show them a photo of Simon and the boys, but other than that we probably just spent 20 minutes smiling and nodding at each other companionably.

At the same shrine, an older woman came and asked Gabrielle to pray for her. She showed Gabrielle some bad hospital test results. Joanne had also been asked to pray for someone. I think it made us all feel uncomfortable but I know that for me, it wasn't just that I don't believe in God, I think a lot of it was just discomfort about being asked to be personally involved in the lives of strangers. But that sums up Iran I think.

In another Shrine at the same mosque we met a young nurse who worked in the burns unit at Shiraz's main hospital and volunteered at the Shrine because 'this is where my heart is'. She told us, with limited English, that the Shrine is a place where people come to pray, to relax, to chat to friends (in person or on mobiles, which we saw a lot of) or who even came for 5, 10, 20 days to read and recite the Koran. It was a place about as different from a Christian church as it's possible to be.

We asked our male travellers whether men approached them at the Shrine but they said not. But the men were undeniably hospitable as both Gabrielle and I managed to wander into the men's Shrine by mistake. While I was politely re-directed early on, poor Gabs managed to get to the third and final room before realising she was the only woman. She came scuttling out pretty quicky to the generous laughs of the men (though not before spotting a man inside holding a sign which seemed to indicate an ongoing competition to 'win a luxury car' which seemed out of place).

More than a few times men are keen to emphasise their opposition to the Government, and in particular to the veil. A typical conversation might go like this...

'Salaam, which country you from?'

'Salaam, we're from Australia.'

'Australia! Do you like Iran?'

'Yes! Man inja ro dust darim' (I love being here)

'But not our president. Ahmadinejad is very bad. The veil, no good!' And this statement is usually accompanied by a dusting off of the hands.

We have had this conversation many times with men. They are always the older men and it's the first thing they are keen for us to understand. One taxi driver asked our guide to emphasise to Gabrielle that the Muslims didn't build Shiraz University. We haven't had this conversation with women, except for one young woman who joked that men may have to do national service for two years but women have to wear the veil for life. She jokingly went to take off her veil for a photo we took. Almost, but not quite.

At Hafez's tomb in Shiraz we met a beautiful group of schoolgirls on excursion - I guess they were around 8-10 years old. Their uniform was a hot pink trouser suit with a white veil. In Iran, the law says girls should start to wear the veil at 9 years, and it will also be part of their uniform. But depending on how conservative the family is many girls might not start wearing it full time until they are older...say around 12. This little group shouted 'hello, how are you!' and when they heard we were from Australia their eyes bulged with excitment. Their astonishment is something I will remember forever. We may as well have been from Outer Space.

In Abaku we had a band of teenage men follow us through the entire two-hour walk of the town, through the lanes, to the shrine of Martyrs and up a steep mountain to the Tower of Silence where the Zoroastrians used to lay out their dead. When we came to the Mosque we spoke to the old women of the town, joking and laughing that both Kim and Gabs were single if they had sons. Our band of men dispersed the corners of the courtyard....unwilling to continue cavorting under the watchful eye of their female, elder townsfolk. The old ladies were delighted to talk to us through our guide. We had a good laugh about the fact that Gabs's mum was looking for a husband for her...they suggested we wait to meet their sons who would soon be at the mosque for prayers. It was the highlight of our stay in that town. Abaku is interesting in that it is religously very conservative but politically reformist. Our guide said that Ahmadinejad visited the town to speak at the local soccer stadium and not one single person went to listen to him. That combination of conservatism and reformism is common, and vice versa. It's an incredibly difficult country for foreigners to get their head around.

We have only had two negative 'people' experiences in the group while being here. One was that same group in Abaku - one of those boys pulled on the backpack of one of the girls in our group - I think more to get her attention than anything else - and more seriously today, one of the young girls had a man follow her through the back lanes of Yazd who forcibly tried to kiss her. He backed off when she threatened to call the police, but continued to follow her as she made her way back to the hotel. A horrible experience in any country, but particularly in a strange place. But this experience has been a one off so far and I'm absolutely certain Iran is as safe, if not safer, for women than Australia or Britain. The town we are in today, Yazd (central Iran), is much more religously conservative than any of the cities we have been in before. All women we have seen wear the full chador (long black cape and veil, but the face is not covered). It has also been the least outwardly friendly town (by this I mean we haven't been stopped for a chat by many people at all) but last night an Imam urged us to come closer to watch the Friday prayers and today we have been welcomed into coffee houses and kebab joints for rest and resuscitation, even with our less than conservative flip flops.

Regardless of gender, it is amazing what can be communicated with very few words.

Iran: Dispelling the myths

Iran: Dispelling the myths

Every day in Iran, another one of my pre-conceived ideas about the country is shot down. Obviously my research is not scientific. I’ve spoken only to people who choose to approach me, and those people probably seek out a western view assuming it’s sympathetic to their own. I know I’m speaking to a liberal elite, but the Iranian middle class is big and growing. I came to Iran with an open mind and even I am shocked at what I’ve found. I want to dispel some myths. I know I can’t change international diplomacy or claim to have more insight than the whole western media. But I know this: I am one western woman who believed something about Iran and I have met one Iranian man whose experience tells me otherwise. Here is what I’ve learnt.

Myth 1: Iranians are a deeply religious people

Sure, there are some religious people in Iran – like there are in any country – and it’s probably safe to say those blokes running the country are fairly devout (the Ayatollah and Guardian Council at least. Ahmadinejad’s pious credentials are unclear). But the majority of Iranians consider themselves secular. It’s a bit like saying Britain is a Christian country and knowing that about 10 per cent of people attend church services. The statistics are roughly the same here.

Myth 2: You don’t have to worry about your hair, because it’s covered

In Iran, hair is big. I mean this both literally and figuratively. Women care about their hair. They show as much of it off in public as it is possible to show while strictly speaking wearing a headscarf. Many people dye their hair and the fringe is all-important, if only because it means more hair is therefore on show. Beehives are big. In Iran, the backcomb serves a decorative and structural role. In order to show all this hair and keep the headscarf secure, one must pile one’s hair as high as possible on top of the head, make it into as big a bun as possible so that the veil can rest of the back of the head without falling off. Not many people have enough hair to create such a structure, so to compensate every woman must own giant scrunchie-type hair pieces. This bizarre device comes in many forms. It can be a clip that you use to fix a French roll, or it can be a more traditional scrunchie that secures a bun. What is certain is that it will be piles of satin, or some other synthetic material, with feathers and/or other decorative agents poking out the sides and/or top. It serves to make the veil stay on and to create a rather fetching profile as the veil drapes over the gigantic structure at the back of the head. For days I thought Iranian women must have such lovely thick hair to create such a look. I wanted to see all of it (need I say more?).

Myth 3: You have to be careful when talking about politics

Everybody wants to talk about politics and politics are openly discussed. In one taxi, our guide was pointing out the dormitories of Shiraz’s universities – of which they have many, including the best medical schools in the Middle East – and the taxi driver said, ‘Make sure you tell them they were built in the Shah’s time. We don’t want them thinking they were built by Muslims.’ Men talk to us everywhere we go and immediately they want to tell us they hate the government and the hejab. In our first three days, two different men had approached me to tell me they hated the hejab and to apologise for the government of Iran. Women make their statements about the headscarf every day in the way they wear it.

Myth 4: Covering up prevents vanity

Iran doesn’t have the highest rate of plastic surgery in the world per capita for nothing. When all you can see is the face, the face becomes an obsession. In 24 hours I’d seen five different people on the streets wearing the post-rhinoplasty bandages. Everybody has a nose job, so there’s no need to hide it. It used to be a status symbol, but now that it’s so common, it’s just a fact of life. Both men and women are into it and in fact, I came across a male mannequin in Tehran wearing nose job bandages. One Iranian man told me his aunt was on her fifth nose. You change it with the fashion, you see. Lips are big too. (You now know what I mean when I say, ‘big’.)

Myth 5: All Iranians wear the chador (or cover up fully in long black cloaks)

The rule is basically that you have to cover your neck, shoulders, to your elbow on your arms and below the ankles on the legs. You can wear sandals and flip flops. The result is that most young women will wear a manteau – which is basically a shirt dress – over jeans. It has to cover your bum. While the idea is to hide the shape of your figure, in reality this is being pushed to the limits and skinny jeans have a whole other meaning in Iran. Sure, many Iranian women wear a chador. And as you go from the rich to the poor parts of cities and the country, you see more women in more conservative clothes. But on the streets of Tehran and Shiraz, women are as fashion-conscious as women anywhere. As my Turkish friend said, ‘This is not free’, and it isn’t, but I think it’s fair to say that young, modern Iranian woman would be just as shocked, offended and outraged at the burka as French parliamentarians.

Myth 6: The call to prayer wakes everyone up

It was my eighth day when I was first awoken by the call to prayer. Not all mosques in Iran broadcast it over loudspeakers, and in fact, few do. In Shia Islam, there are only three prayers a day, as opposed to the five calls to prayer you hear in Turkey or other countries with a Sunni majority. Apparently Shiites are more relaxed about prayer and while nobody is upset at people running 10 minutes late to the mosque for prayer, it would not be seen in some neighbouring Arab countries. Our guide told us this as we sat in a mosque’s courtyard in Yazd (a fairly religious city by Iranian standards) watching the service and a Mullah yelled out and gestured for us to get closer for a better view.

Myth 7: You can’t look men in the eye

Men yell out ‘hello’ to us wherever we go and it is perfectly acceptable to smile and yell hello back. In every city we’ve been to, men have approached us (mainly middle-aged men, so far, unfortunately) to talk to us. It is more than acceptable for us to look at them and talk back. I even bat a few eyelids to my cute young taxi driver in Shiraz. In the gardens – and the Iranians do good garden – you see young couples holding hands and sitting quietly in shady areas quite close to each other. I haven’t witnessed any kissing or overt PDAs, but men and women do talk, and flirt even, in public. An Australian guy I’m with was approached by an Iranian girl who gave him her phone number. This all took place in public and nobody called the Revolutionary Police. In Eghlid and Yazd, where people are more religious and fewer speak English, it’s true that we haven’t got into the exact same conversations with men, but we’ve still been greeted, welcomed and stared at warmly. In fact, one response I got in Eghlid from a 19-year-old boy was in contrast to all the others so far. The conversation went something like this:

HIM: ‘Do you like this [the veil]?’
ME: ‘No. Do you?’
HIM: ‘Yes.’
ME: ‘Why?’
HIM: ‘Because Khomeini said it.’
ME: ‘Why don’t you wear it then?’
HIM: ‘Sorry, I don’t speak English.’
Everywhere, all sorts.

Myth 8: Iranians want a revolution

The Iranian people have had two revolutions in the past 100 years. They don’t necessarily want another one. They have first-hand memories of how unpredictable revolutions can be. How destabilising. How they can be hijacked. How you never can tell what you might get in the end. On the streets of the cities, we’ve met so many people who tell us how embarrassing Ahmadinejad is (‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘We had John Howard for 13 years.’). Not many middle class people like him, or voted for him, and we saw this outrage in the protests of 2009. But the fact is, he’s done a lot for the poor provincial people and he’s very popular as a result outside the cities, no matter how much sophisticated urbanites hate the thought. And getting rid of him is only a start, people say. They still only get to vote for candidates approved by the Guardian Council. The Council is made up of six mullahs and six lawyers appointed by parliament. They get to approve people who will run for election and so the choice is small, and some feel unfair and unrepresentative. This is the organisation that must be reformed to bring about the freedom middle class Iranians crave. But, as I said, many people believe that this reform can happen without a revolution. Instead, they want to trust elected parliamentarians to pass reformist legislation so that gradual and lasting change happens over time in a stable manner.

Myth 9: Iranians hate Jews

There has been a vibrant Jewish minority in Tehran and Shiraz since the Persians themselves settled. There still is today and they have a representative in parliament. Jews are allowed to practice their faith all over Iran and they are able to travel freely between Israel and Iran – something other Iranians are not able to do. (In fact, Christians and other religions are also allowed to practice their faiths all over Iran on the condition that they do not promote or proselytise.) Most Iranians don’t understand the ant-Israeli rhetoric (or anti-US rhetoric for that matter). As one Iranian put it to me when I asked, ‘We don’t see Israel or America as our enemy. We are more worried about Pakistan.’ I’m not denying Ahmadinejad has a problem with Israel, and we’ve heard him say enough things to know how he feels without me repeating them here. I’m not saying there aren’t Iranians who might agree with him. I am saying that many Iranians are more threatened by the expansion intentions of their Arab neighbours than the state of Israel. I am also saying that there are Jewish people with national representation in parliament living happy lives in Iran without fear of persecution.

Myth 10: Iran is a dry country

Well, let’s be clear about this: there is a massive distinction between public and private life in Iran. People drink alcohol inside their homes every day without fear of prosecution. Shiraz grapes are still grown in Shiraz for people to make their fine home brew. People (and I met at least one) buy dozens of kilos of raisins to make their own brand of vodka. Dealing in alcohol is a severe offense, as is drinking it in public, but drinking at home is not illegal.

Inside the mosque

Inside the mosque

Inside the mosque – where the men are far away – we western women received an even warmer reception by the local women than we’d receive on the streets (and that’s saying something). At the Bogh’e-ye Sayyed Mir Mohammad (a mausoleum) in Shiraz we sat against the turquoise tiled walls and marvelled at the intricate mirror work on the walls and ceilings. Was it gaudy or grand? Some say it’d be a good place for a disco. We soon found it was a good place for social interaction, in any case. Soon after we sat, an Iranian woman came over and plonked herself down right next to me, so close she was almost touching. There was a lot of space in this mosque, but she wasn’t shy to want to be near us, to ask me to pray for her. Maybe she thought if we prayed to all our Gods (whether we had one did not seem to cross her mind), help would be more forthcoming. She managed to communicate to me that she’d had some bad results at the hospital and she needed prayer. This is no different to how my mum would feel in the same circumstance – wanting people to pray for her. She may not go to church and sidle up to a Muslim woman in a headscarf, grab her hand and ask her to pray, but that’s perhaps just the difference between churches and mosques. Inside the mosque is not a quiet place. Sure, there are many people praying, but there are also some sleeping, spread out on the beautiful Persian carpets. Some are lounging more casually, feet toward Mecca and chatting on their mobile phones. A few kids are running riot and threatening to pull down the curtain that separates men from women. Nobody is too worked up about it. There are some girlfriends holding hands and praying, and since we’re at a shrine, there are people touching the sarcophagus and a few are crying. A volunteer worker, who is normally a nurse in a burns hospital, told us that a group of women in the corner were there to read the Quran. Sometimes people come for five days, sometimes 10 or 20 in an attempt to become closer to God. This mosque is open 24 hours a day. So, yes, people come for prayer and to be closer to God and that is clear. What is not clear is what some others come for. Maybe just some peace and quiet? Many come to relax. The important thing is that is doesn’t really matter. There doesn’t have to be a service on to enter. People don’t have to sit by themselves and be quiet. They can sit with a friend and chat if that’s what takes their fancy. Or they can lie down or find a foreigner to stare at. Soon after the woman with the bad test results joined our circle, two other women and their four children rocked up and made it a party. They videoed us, picked up their kids, plopped them down in the middle of us and took some photos. We exchange the few words we shared in Farsi and English but we mostly just smiled at each other and showed photos of our families and shared something. Something that doesn’t make sense in words on paper or screen, but something we all felt. As a kid I was never allowed to play chasings inside my Catholic church, but as I sat inside the mosque so close to other women and their complicated lives, I saw that religion was the least important thing in understanding other people.

Tehran: What not to wear

In the final hour of my flight to Tehran, I started to think about my arrival outfit for the all important immigration queue. Packing for Iran was like packing for a weekend on the moon - I had only the vaguest sense of what people wore.

For a long time I think I thought 'hejab' was a particular garment of clothing. But it just means a modest way of dressing. The chador, the burka, the manteau are all forms of hejab. Lonely Planet had suggested jeans and a trench would be a suitable interim measure until I could buy a manteau (whatever that was) in Tehran. But now, as I sat on the plane about to land, I started to worry about the jeans I was wearing.

What sort of jeans were hejab? Straight leg? Waist high? Baggy boyfriend cut? Skinnies? Let's be honest, the shape of my calf would definitely be visible through my J-Brand straight legs and that, technically, was Against the Rules. But then, so were the daisy duke denim shorts with stockings I'd seen one girl sporting earlier on in the flight. I wasn't keen on using her as my modesty yardstick. In the end I changed into some black, wide leg trousers and my black trench - an outfit that made Mother Theresa look immodest.

Of course, when I arrived at the immigration queue Iranian women were wearing fitted jeans, skirts, tailored dresses and colourful kimono-style jackets. One or two even wore knee-length skirts with opaque tights (that really did surprise me, and I haven't seen it since). Their veils hung casually off beautiful dark brown buns of hair - like you might hang a towel on a door knob. I felt about as unfashionable as a velvet scrunchie (more on those later). In any case, I was waved through inspection, survived my first Tehran cab ride and arrived tired, and modest, at the Parastoo Hotel, where my slumbering travel buddy waited for me and our adventure. As suspected, I had a lot to learn about Iran...fashion and beyond.

A female visitor to Iran

As a female visitor to Iran, your sins are both expected and forgiven. Nobody bat an eyelid when I walked into the male toilets in Tehran airport. Later that day, when I delved deep into the mosque before realising I was the only woman, I got a few strange looks, but the most animated reaction was a guy cracking up when he saw the look on my face as a I realised my faux pas. You'd think the guy taking my shoes at the entrance might have mentioned I was banned from going in. Or one of the 10 or so men I passed in the entrance hall.

As a worldly western woman, often in Iran the men will treat you like an honorary man. This means there's not much fuss when you start wandering around the male section of the mosque, yes, but also it means men will approach you and talk to you in the street and you won't be scorned by talking back. (Lucky, because did I mention the men are HOT?)

'Hello, hello,' you hear wherever you walk. And you smile and say, 'Hello' or 'Salaam' and it's OK and it's basically flirting but it feels so much more outrageous because it feels dangerous!

What surprised us was how eager men were to tell us how they hated the hejab and Ahmadinejad. Invariably, five things happen when men approach.

1. They say hello in English and we reply.

2. They ask us where we're from and we say, 'Australia'. When they know where it is, they comment on how far we've come, and we don't go through the drama of telling them we've only come from London.

3. They ask us if we like Iran and we tell them we love it.

4. They apologise for the hejab and sometimes they tell us how different it is inside the home – how you don't need to wear it there. They tell us in their own way they hate it.

5. They tell us they hate the government and how it must go.

We tell them it's the same everywhere, and we don't really like our governments all the time either. But they know it's not the same thing and so do we. Really, they just want us to know it doesn't represent them; that Iranians are not all represented by the rules and rants of Ahmadinejad or Ayatollah Khamenei.

But by far the most interesting and moving reward of being here is how you are treated by the women. Many just want to stare. Some want to practise their English. Others want to hear about where you're from and your family and what you do. We have been approached by so many women, everywhere we go, every day, women stare at us, smile at us, look at us. Really look at us. I think they laugh, sometimes, at what dorks we are, having failed to totally nail the look just yet. But in some of their eyes, I see a yearning. It's more than curiosity, it's an eagerness, a wonderment. They don't mind coming right up to you and just staring at you – they don't try to hide it. They look into your eyes and smile and many also say 'hello' and you can tell you've made their day by just being there and smiling at them. By just being in their country, you've given them hope.

Because even though they can drink wine at home and dance and sing and wave their hair around like Beyoncé – they can do all of this at their home and the homes of their friends – they still want to be able to walk down the street without a piece of meaningless material sitting on top of their beautifully coiffured hair.

How I felt when I put on the hejab

I worked up the courage to go into the bathroom and put on my chador and headscarf. The headscarf was lovely; the royal blue brought out the blue in my eyes and covered my greasy hair and overgrown fringe. But that's a bit like saying, 'Oh well, she died having fun.' Cold comfort.

I thought everyone would stare at me – the way I stare at women wearing headscarves in Turkey or burkhas in London. I thought they'd ask, as I do, what made you make that decision? Why do you think it necessary to cover your hair, the shape of your body? Do you believe it is sanctioned by God? How can you believe that when it seems to me merely an endorsement of the sins of man? (And I use 'man' here with intention.)

I was the only woman in the queue wearing the chador. Most of the women were my age or younger and they were wearing jeans and long jackets or tops just covering their bottoms. I felt slightly ridiculous, but I had also felt ridiculous in my hiking shoes and chinos, right, so wasn't it the same thing? No. Because this time what I was wearing stood for something (other than my inability to combine practicality and style). It stood for something I detest and the people in the queue detested it too and it showed. It's here I got the stares: hard, disapproving ones and I thought for a moment that I understood. But I don't, do I?

As if to drill home the message, in front of me in the queue was the most handsome man I'd seen in weeks. I didn't laugh as I thought how what I wanted to do to him could get me stoned to death. (In reality, I later realised, it probably wouldn't but I'm still not willing to test the system.)

I'll question again and again my reasons for visiting Iran and whether it was the right decision. I know some people think it's not. Some people think the gift of the tourist dollar is tacit support of the regime and its rules. But I don't believe that. I can't – because how can we ever hope to understand each other if we don't go where we fear?

Why I couldn’t put on the hejab

I went into the WCs at Istanbul Airport, from where I was flying to Tehran, to put on my Iranian garb. I couldn't do it. I walked back out again without even having put on the headscarf.

I bought myself a sarnie and a coffee and I sat at a table chewing my fingernails – something I never do – asking myself why I was so nervous. For a moment I fooled myself into thinking it was because I had the chador – a long black cloak that was compulsory after the revolution, but to many women now a reminder of all they'd lost. In other words, I was told I'd stand out on the streets of Tehran and perhaps even be looked down on for being so conservative. It's only for old women and small towns and the seriously religious, people said. But they were people in books and on the internet and I needed to get there to see for myself; when I could go to an Iranian shop and buy the clothes they wear and be sure I was doing the right thing.

But it wasn't that, was it, because I couldn't even put on the headscarf. When I examined it, I realised I was afraid. What I was about to wear was anathema to everything I believed in. I do believe in respecting the cultures of the countries I visit, so in theory I had no problem wearing the hejab in Iran – and let's face it – no choice.

But in Turkey, I did have a choice. In the hotel I was staying at in Adana, I met an Iranian couple. They asked me what I would wear when I visited Iran and I demonstrated with the new pashmina I'd bought in Cappadocia how I'd wear it as a headscarf. They smiled and nodded in approval. Then the Turkish hotel manager said, quite seriously, 'Take it off now.

'Turkey and Iran are both Muslim countries but we practice it very differently.'

On a train the next day I met a Turkish woman and we got to talking about my trip to Iran. She asked why I was going and said that she'd heard people say it was different in Iran now. She asked if I had to wear a headscarf. I told her how the young women of Tehran wear it all the way on the back of their head, just resting on their high buns, to show as much of their hair as possible.

She stared at me blankly and said, 'But this is not free.'

She later thanked God she was born in Turkey. She won't be going to Iran as long as the women are not free. In Turkey, choice is important. It is a defining characteristic of the nation state and the population itself. Where you stand on the headscarf defines you.

I sat there, at that little table in the airport café, chewing on my fingernails, thinking about the two Turkish reactions to my trying on the headscarf in the past two days.

When it came down to it, I just wanted to cherish my freedom for as long as I could.

Clare Cameron - Rollercoaster Love

Rollercoaster Love

Love is a rollercoaster at the show

Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes a little slow

It’s a blast, a rush, you’re on top of the world!

You lose your stomach and may want to hurl*

Love is exuberant – you scream out a name

Love is knowing you’ll not be the same

Sometimes it’s gentle, you feel the wind in your ears

Sometimes love hurts, it brings you to tears

Rollercoaster love is feeling yourself soar

And standing many, many feet tall

Love makes you generous, love makes you free

It’s helping someone be the best they can be

You never want it to stop, never want it to end

If it does, you just get back on and do it over again.

 

*For our ten-year-old readers.

Clare Cameron is saving the world one comms strategy at a time.

She’s pretty sure this will be her last rhyme. 

Caitlin Moran on Australian radio: Do you have a vagina and do you want to be in charge on it?

There is a two-step test to find out if you're a feminist, says Caitlin Moran:
1. Do you have a vagina?
2. Do you want to be in charge of it?

Answer yes? Then you're a feminist and you should probably listen to this radio programme with How To Be A Woman author and Not the Style Pages' hero, Caitlin Moran.

She discusses fantasising about Chevy Chase the first time she masturbated (do you blame her?), how Germaine Greer and Courtney Love inspired her, why women should not have Brazilians and what porn should look like.

Don't miss it: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/sundayprofile/stories/2011/3334979.htm

Belinda English on love - It's going to hurt....

Love.

It's going to hurt. But try not to let that deter you from it.
It should make you feel amazing, if you do it properly.
It will come and go for the rest of your life. This is a good thing.
You should try to surround yourself with people who you love and who love you back.
Good luck! And if you have any advice for me, please don't be afraid to share it.

Belinda is currently enjoying a year off to hone her knife skills. She's 32, likes a glass of wine and is always looking for love. She loves in Sydney. 

Sarah Farraway - Love is not a feeling...

Two thoughts for Owen (and anyone else out there interested):

(1) Platonic love is just as important and, frankly, often a lot better than romantic love. Love your friends as much as your lovers (and maybe a bit more as they will probably last longer) and I guarantee you will have a rich, interesting and lovely life.

(2) As for romantic love, I was struggling with how to say what I wanted to say and then I went to a wedding on the weekend. The priest who performed the ceremony summed it up for me. He said: "Love is not a feeling, it's a decision."

As unromantic as that may sound, it's the big difference between my understanding of love when I was younger and now. As I get older, and my relationships last longer, I have realised that deciding to love and deciding to be loved is the secret. It's something you do with your head, not your heart. But you can't just love anyone!  So when you're ready to settle down (which I hope is a long way off Owen) pick someone you have lots of feelings for and then just decide to love them rain, hail or shine.

Good luck.

Sarah

Sarah is studying psychology, works in HR and lives in Sydney.

Katherine Burgdorf - Happy love on your happy 10th birthday

You never need to worry about finding love.

If you're not sure whether someone loves you, then they probably don't love you enough.
If you have to ask yourself whether you love a person, you don't.
If the person you love makes you sad a lot, or makes you feel bad about yourself, then it isn't love.
If someone loves another person more than they love you, then wish them well. It isn't meant to be.
You can't make someone love you, and you don't own someone's love.
It's a lot like a fire. You have to take turns kindling it, all year round. If your fire goes out, you can re-start it together, but not on your own.
You might love someone who is very different from you, or very similar. Neither is better.
Don't love someone just because you think it will make them happy.
Love isn't about changing people, so spend your love on someone you don't want to change.

But you never need to worry about finding real love, because you'll absolutely know it when it finds you.

Katherine is an accidental stockbroker and co-founder of 'Not the style pages'. She often wondered about spotting true love, but then it found her and she hasn't worried since.

Fran Chambers on love advice to a 10-year-old boy

When I was small, too young to really understand, my mother told me that there are many different types of love. Now that the previously unthinkable is happening and I'm slowly becoming my mother, this is my advice to you my son:

Love has many forms and comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You will love different people for different reasons. Sometimes for a week, sometimes for a lifetime.

Always try to give love freely and without expectation. Ninety percent of the time you'll reap the benefits. The other 10 percent will hurt like hell, but one day you'll look back and realise how far you've come and how much you've learnt.

Don't be careless with other people's hearts and don't take shit from people who are reckless with yours. Learn to truly love yourself - for you are the light of my life.

This line from one of my favourite films of all time, Moulin Rouge, is exactly what I want to say to you: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

Fran Chambers is an employee communications specialist, pie addict and travel lover. She lives in London. You can follow her on Twitter @frangipanish

This post is part of Not the Style Pages' SpeedBlog series. This is SpeedBlog1.

Wendy Saunt on love advice to a 10-year-old boy

Owen – so much to say, so little space. I’ll start with this, though: love is a splendid but delicate thing. To have it in your life – and you should, whether it’s pertaining to family, friends or girls (or boys, or both, who knows?) – takes effort. You should be generous, magnanimous, empathetic, patient and considerate; you should expect all that in return.

Love is, without doubt, fallible and it can’t always save the day, but it is jolly nice, so it’s worth digging deep.

Most importantly, to someone entering their second decade, I’d say this: how you love is a mark of who you are. I’ll spare you the details, but the world is full of people who have no idea how to love, or can’t be bothered to. So, set yourself above the fray – the chicks will totally dig it.

Wendy Saunt is a interior designer, writer and art consultant. She lives in London. You can follow her on Twitter @Wendy__Saunt

This post is part of Not the Style Pages' SpeedBlog series. This is SpeedBlog1.

Gabrielle Jackson on love advice for a 10 year old boy

“Go for it,” I would say.

“Tell her you love her. Write her a song, a poem, a story. Bring her flowers. Be persistent. Tell her all the things you love about her and how she makes you feel.

“Hold nothing back!”

When the inevitable heartache comes, but not a moment before, I will tell him this:

“Love is always worth the heartache.

“Do something with the pain. Use it up, get it out.

“Write another poem about how you feel, write a song or a story. They will probably be better than the ones you wrote when you were in love anyway.

“Heartache is a painful, but necessary, part of living life to the fullest.

“Rejoice in love and enjoy the heartache.

“I know I’m getting carried away here, darling, but you’ll thank me one day.

“Always love and love being in love. Love the most you can and never, ever be afraid of it.”

The same advice applies if it’s a boy he loves.

This post is part of Not the Style Pages' SpeedBlog series. This is SpeedBlog1.

Naomi Tarszisz on love

I don’t know many ten year olds, but I found my diary recently whilst cleaning up at my mum's house. Sobering that read was, it did make me laugh. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life because all my experiences have led me to this point. And if I had to tell my ten year old self (or Owen) something, it would be this:

I’ve never met anyone who listened to their heart, in all things (including romance), who opened themselves up to love and being love who did not find fulfilment. But firstly to love life, to love yourself, to accept without judgement and embrace the possibilities of life with an open heart; then you will be happy and find love in all things. Follow your path and enjoy the journey.

Having said that, there is also a very literal interpretation of love through the organ of love - the heart - and since I truly believe health is important, I’d also suggest exercise and a healthy diet. And watch less TV. Really, it couldn’t matter less if Charlene and Scott get back together or not.  

Naomi Tarszisz is a mother, digital consultant and yoga buff. She lives in Sydney, Australia. You can follow her on Twitter @naomitarz

This post is part of Not the Style Pages' SpeedBlog series. This is SpeedBlog1.

Why I want to go to Iran

I want to go to Iran for reasons I can’t yet articulate. I want to go for so many reasons. I want to go to broaden my mind, to learn new things, witness an exotic culture in play.

There is, however, one reason I want to go that I can articulate. I want to go to find an answer to this pressing question: How far are we (in the west) from the Islamic Republic if the legitimate defence for rape is that a woman was provocatively dressed? If we believe that a man’s primal – natural – instinct cannot resist the temptations of seeing female flesh without acting on it?

'My Sister, guard your veil; My Brother, guard your eyes.'

This slogan was posted throughout the streets of Iran after the Islamic Revolution. Women were punished for letting their veil slip to reveal the nape of their neck. No flesh must be on display in the Islamic Republic. For who could blame a man for what he might do in the face of such temptation?

In the west, we are currently protesting this line of thinking by organising a series of Slut Walks. The walks are in response to a policeman telling a group of Canadian university students that if they didn’t want to get raped, they shouldn’t dress like sluts.

We all know the stories of rape victims in Islamic regimes being shunned by their families and prosecuted themselves under strange laws. We shake our heads at it as though we don’t understand. How many of us equally understand the shame of rape victims in the west, whose sexual history, sartorial judgement and drinking habits are all put on trial along with the accused?

The current rate of conviction for rape in the UK is about six per cent. In Australia, it is even lower.

In the west, as in Iran, rape goes unpunished.

I’m pleased that our Slut Walk protests can happen in public, but I’m curious about the private protests that happen in Tehran homes every day.

Like Katherine, with whom I will travel to Iran, I was inspired by Azar Nafisi. I came across her book, Things I’ve Been Silent About, by accident; it was given to me as a birthday present by a good friend. I hungrily followed it up with Reading Lolita in Tehran. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say these books changed my life. They changed the way I thought about nation states and how much you can judge individuals by the actions of their national leaders. It changed everything I knew about Iranian attitudes to women. It changed everything I knew about Iran.

Nafisi is an intelligent, creative and brave woman. She inspired me to read more about Iran and Iranian history. It struck me how little I knew about this fascinating country.

I’ve asked myself so many times how I would feel if I fought for a revolution that then stripped away my own basic freedom. I’ve never been able to truly come up with an answer, but Nafisi articulates her thoughts and feelings beautifully. It seems to me that these women know the meaning of feminism better than I do. Having walked in the street with their boyfriends, they now must wear a veil and sit apart in cafés. How does one adapt?

I don’t know enough about the rich Persian culture and history that has given the world so much. I don’t know enough about the beautiful poetry of Rumi and Hafez. I want to know more.

But it’s not differences I go to Iran in search of. It’s solidarity. And perhaps a desire to ask the question: as women, do we all just want the same things? And how long till we, finally, get them?

A holiday in Iran

There have been three main responses to the news that I am going on holiday to Iran.

Response 1: Really? But you won't be able to drive
Response 2: Really, but you won't be able to walk around on your own
Response 3: When you're arrested I'll lead a campaign for your release

I think the third scenario is unlikely. If I am jailed, something very interesting has taken place along the way. But I'm very interested in the second and third responses. I think people are confusing Iran with Saudi Arabia. But then, I don't really know. And that's the point. I'm going to this country because I don't know much about it. Nor does anyone else I know, and in London, where everyone's a traveller, that's saying something.

I'm going to Iran to meet up with Gabrielle Jackson, who is touring the world blogging about kebabs (visit her at http://kebabquest.com/). Gabrielle was inspired to go to Iran by the memoirs of Azar Nafisi, a professor of English literature who has also written about her life, career and the history of the novel in the shadow of the Islamic revolution. Her books are among the best I've ever read and they have now inspired me. I'm also going to Iran because I've spent the last three years holidaying in Western Europe. My adventure resevoir is bone dry. I want big travel eyes and wide travel ears.

Thanks to my parents, I think I'm more open-minded than most people but I'm still surprised by the similarity of reactions I get to this trip. Most of all, I'm surprised by people's lack of critical thinking. To most, Iran is what they read in the newspapers (broadsheets and tabloid) and that is the stoning of women, the illegitimate imprisonment and torture of citizens and foreigners, and very likely the building of nuclear weapons. I know those are all real things in Iran. But they are not the only things about Iran. They can't be. Three people together in a meeting room can be complicated, so how can you dismiss a country full of people, with a history of art and poetry as old Iran's, as one dimensional?

Nothing of the regime's barbarities should be forgiven in the name of cultural plurality. Marrying off nine year old girls to 50 year old men - to any men - is not a culture, it's a disgrace. But don't you know similar stories could be written truthfully about human rights and political process in the UK? They aren't, because that's how nationalism works. But don't you want to go and see what it really looks like? And talk to people who live there? Can't you see beyond the headlines and accept there is going to be a country largely inhabited by kind, generous, normal people? I've read the Iranian embassy's British website. That doesn't paint a rosy picture of Britian, but Iranians still travel to visit us.

Of course some people are genuinely interested to know why I'm so keen to go. I always come back to this; Iran is a country where women's rights were removed in a single generation by the Islamic revolution. Even worse, many of the young women most affected fought for a revolution themselves, not knowing what it would become. In her books, Azar writes about the guilt she feels in being part of a revolution which then stripped her rights as an individual in her own country. It is not impossible to imagine this happening. Every time a British politician argues to repeal abortion laws, I feel a chill of similar air. But Iran now sits on the edge of history. I want to know what they think after those 2009 protests. I want to see if there really are posters which read 'Sister, guard your veil, Brothers, guard your eyes!' I want to see what women wear and how they look and talk. I wonder what they want. Is it something similar to what we have, or is it very different? And when do they think it might happen?

The other thing people usually ask me once they've suggested my choice of holiday destination is crazy, is 'What does Simon think?' Right here, in this mighty British democracy where I both drive and walk on my own, smart people are asking me whether my husband approves of my trip.

Katherine.