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.