It's my visa and I'll cry if I want to: How I got kicked out of Iran

Let's hope these girls are allowed to cry and become judges

It was not a good day to have a bout of pre-menstrual tears.

This is a lesson in how little decisions and seemingly small gestures turn into big events.

I set off from the Parasto Hotel in Tehran in search of an imaginary ‘Foreign Aliens Office’ (dreamt up by the Lonely Planet) with a heavy heart. My friend from London, Katherine, had left Iran and our trip was over. I wouldn’t be going back to London anytime soon. I felt sad and when I hit the streets in the rain I knew the tears were mounting in the dam behind my eyelids.

With my map in hand I easily found the street that the shamefully outdated, incorrect and dangerously misleading Lonely Planet guide to Iran directed me to. I knew as soon as I turned on to it that there was no visa office on this industrial thoroughfare. But I blindly followed its instructions anyway and paid an incorrect fee of 550,000IR to Bank Melli.

I walked up and down the street four times in my attractive purple raincoat, with people helping me cross the road in the treacherous traffic and asking the occasional passer-by if they knew where the so-called Foreign Aliens Office was. Nobody did because it doesn’t exist but I didn’t know that then. After about an hour I decided to give up, go back to the hotel, and follow the advice of the locals not to try to extend my visa in Tehran.

Just before jumping in a taxi, I gave it one last shot and asked a male shopkeeper if he spoke English. He didn’t, but he asked a woman passing if she did. She stopped and asked me if she could help. I told her I was looking for the Foreign Aliens Office, she didn’t understand, so I showed her my notepad with the address, which also had other notes on which metro to catch and which branch of the bank to pay the visa fee to. Unfortunately she misread my scribbled notes and understood that I needed to go to the bank at the metro stop I had written down. But I didn’t know that then. She said she knew where it was. She meant the metro stop. I thought she meant the Foreign Aliens Office.

A nurse made me cry
But this lady was so nice and even after I suspected she had misunderstood, I couldn’t leave her or convince her to leave me. I discovered that she was from Syria, but had moved to Iran with her family because they were Shi’ites. I discovered she was a nurse, like my mum. I discovered her mother was very sick and her father died four months ago. I discovered she was a beautiful, beautiful person. And I cried. And once I started I couldn’t stop. Once I started, for more and more reasons, I had to keep crying.

I cried because women on the bus were nice to me, offered for me to stay at their homes, told me they loved me and then gave me tissues to wipe up the tears they induced. I cried because a poor nurse refused to let me pay my own bus fare. I cried because a busy bank manager took time out of his day to accompany me to a visa office because I was a guest in his country and I had the wrong address in my notepad. I cried because he was genuinely concerned at the bad impression the west has of Iran and Iranians. I cried because it was one of those days when I just needed to let the tears go. I cried for London and for friends I was leaving behind and I cried because the generosity of the human spirit was on display in lurid detail in a country that people told me was dangerous.

When we got to Bank Melli near the metro stop I had written down, I felt so bad about taking this woman so far out of her way, especially knowing we were clearly on the wrong track, that I thought it more polite to just carry on until somebody gave us the right address. This looked like Bank Melli’s head office. Surely they would know where the visa office was. I thought somebody would tell us the address and I could just leave and go back to the hotel, well and truly over the visa situation, as I was. But no, somebody called the manager, who was so distressed at my tears, he went off to find the correct address of the visa office and then personally accompanied me and the nurse in a taxi, for which he paid.

While we were waiting for him, I was given water, chocolates, a chair, a heater and tissues to dry myself with - both my tears and my coat of the rain.

Unfortunately, I could not communicate to anybody that I wasn’t crying because I was scared or lost. Apparently Iranians don’t cry when people are nice to them. Unfortunately, the tourist police don’t like it when two locals bring in a foreign woman who’s been crying, is wet, alone and has an incorrect address in her notepad.

Nobody listens to a cry baby
They were very nice to me, but demanded to know where I was staying and how I got the visa to Iran. I explained that I had been on a tour, but it had ended. They rang Reza – my divine, composed and urbane tour director – but they called me Catherine, my middle name. They had not asked me my name, just read it from my passport incorrectly. I tried to interfere.

‘My name is Gabrielle,’ I insisted, first talking directly to the police officer, then to the bank manager and finally to the nurse. Nobody listened. I knew Reza would be confused because Katherine, who was also on the tour, had left the night before. I said it over and over, and even though I was no longer crying, nobody was listening to a word I said.

I don’t speak Farsi, but I didn’t need to in order to understand that the policeman was angry and Reza was copping it. Eventually he put me on the phone to Reza and I was able to explain that it was Gabrielle and that I was trying to extend my visa in Tehran, against his better judgement. His calm and confident manner almost made me cry again, but not quite. By this time I suspected I might be in trouble, and I don’t cry when I’m scared.

In his own inimitable way, Reza told me not to worry, assured me everything was fine, that he would send somebody over from the hotel who would ‘act as my host’ in Tehran. And then they would give me my visa.

All seemed fine. The bank manager and nurse left and as I was waving goodbye Mustafa arrived. Mustafa worked for Reza and we had met in Yazd. I was so pleased to see him that I even forgave him for the stories he’d told me about tormenting donkeys and throwing a kitten off a roof when he was a kid (although I still might not trust him with my pets).

He asked me why I was crying when nothing was wrong. I told him I was crying because Iranian people are so nice. He looked at me strangely but carried on to the office of the head honcho tourist police dude.

Hand over your licence, buddy!
Mustafa has a face that could melt an ice queen and you know before you talk to him that he has been bewitching women since birth. But in a day of unforunates, unfortunately, his cheeky charm did not impress the tourist police. Pretty soon after Mustafa entered the office, he’d had both his tour license and driver’s license confiscated. Angry policeman kicked us both out of his office with no advice on what to do next.

Mustafa was scolded for leaving me alone and giving me the wrong address and for letting me walk the streets of Tehran alone in the rain. When he explained that I got the address from the Lonely Planet, that the tour had ended and that, as an Australian, I was free to roam the country alone, the policeman lost it. Apparently, he did not like to be told he was wrong.

In the course of the six hours he kept us sitting in the visa office, long after it was closed and everybody else had gone home, it emerged that he was cross because I had been found alone and surrounded by Afghan men under a wooden bridge. Which was why I was crying. And it’s there I was saved by the nurse.

It was no use trying to explain that this story was mad and completely and utterly untrue. I was crying; there had to be a reason, and to this very angry man, that seemed like a reasonable explanation.

Neither Mustafa nor I could fathom from where this story had come, but we decided it was counter-productive to keep insisting I was crying because people were nice to me and my friend had left for London the night before.

It’s for her own protection
‘What if something should happen to her?’ angry policeman asked Mustafa. ‘It would reflect badly on Iran. The western media would blow it all out of proportion.’

'She has been to much more dangerous cities than Tehran', Mustafa said. But every time Mustafa spoke, no matter how calmly, this man saw red. His anger was palpable and we could tell, by this stage, he felt he had something to prove.

Although Mustafa had befriended other officers there and had calls put through from his tourist police friends in Shiraz, our dude was the ranking officer on duty and he had a grudge.

Eventually, he decided I couldn’t stay if I wasn’t on a tour: an arbitrary and unlawful decision, but one that I was, frankly, ready to accept by then. I had terrible guilt about getting Mustafa’s livelihood confiscated and hijacking his whole day.

You may now go home to your mother
The police officer said he would give me my passport back, along with Mustafa’s various licenses, if I got a flight back to Australia. It was for my own protection, he insisted. I said I wasn’t going to Australia, I would go to Turkey or Georgia. He said, ‘Why can’t you just go back to your home country?’

‘Because I don’t want to and it’s none of your business actually,’ I didn’t say. I just stared at him in disbelief. He shook his head and walked off. He didn’t like it.

We waited.

Eventually, after our hours in purgatory, head honcho angry dude said that if another tour guide could come and vouch for Mustafa, and they bought me a flight for the next day, they would let us all go. Oh, and by the way, Bank Melli had paid my visa fee to the wrong account and the visa office couldn’t accept it, so I had to go back to the same branch (by now far away) and get my money back and pay it again to a different account. But the bank closes for a couple of days in, like, 20 minutes. Sorry we didn’t mention it six hours ago when you gave us the receipt. Only joking, they didn’t apologise.

Mohammed, another of Reza’s contacts swept in to save the day. We were able to go to another bank, pay the visa fee again (300,000IR this time, without a refund on the other 550,000IR I’d already paid) and Mustafa and Mohammed kindly bought me a flight to Istanbul. It took about an hour for the ticket to arrive and then we were all set free. Me with my passport, Mustafa and Mohammed with their licenses.

I’ll cry if I want to
It felt like a relief, but only for a little while. I left the visa office feeling embarrassed and ashamed. I was so sorry to have got Mustafa and Reza in trouble and mortified about wasting Mustafa’s whole day. All because I cried.

I had spent two weeks in Iran speculating that women there were much more free than I had thought. Sure, they have to wear the hejab, but they wear it in such a way that expresses their protest every day. Everybody talks about the hejab and how they hate it and women work and date and go out at night. And then, there in that visa office, it became clear how much further they’ve got to go.

For while my country also has a long way to go till we reach equality, I am allowed to choose to travel alone; go anywhere alone, in fact. That’s how I’ve lived in Sydney, New York and London and even spent a little stint in Barcelona. It’s how I’ve already travelled through Greece and Turkey by myself. I’ve been out alone and travelled around these very dangerous places all by myself and nobody has ever stopped me or kicked me out for crying. And believe me, I’ve cried a lot on the streets of these cities. I remember, back in 2007, crying on the 38 bus at least once a week late at night, all alone, for many different reasons. I never got kicked out of London, although nobody ever offered me a tissue either.

This piece was originally entitled ‘The day I let all Iranian women down.’ I thought I’d let them down by proving the male belief that women are emotional and irrational: the very reason women are not allowed to become judges in Iran. I thought I’d proven them right. But I hadn’t. I cried that day, yes. Let me get this straight, though, because it’s important: at no point did I sob or break down or make, like, crying noises. I just had tears coming out of my eyes. I was laughing about it most of the time. I never lost my reason.

On the other hand, that police officer lost his. His anger was just as raw – if not more so – than mine. He made totally unreasonable demands and statements. He made up scenarios to support his position.

The day the tourist police let Iran down
When I think about how the tourist police officer behaved and I behaved, I am sure, on balance, he was acting more irrationally that day than I was. But it’s OK to lose it with anger, because that’s a male thing, is the underlying belief structure. There is no doubt in my mind that anger and ego corrupt reason more than a few tears. And that is what Iranian society, and western society I suppose, must somehow face.

I’m not ashamed anymore, nor am I embarrassed. If I want to cry on a bus because women are nice to me, I am going to bloody well going to cry on the bus because women are nice to me. I didn’t let those women down that day. It was the day, rather, that one man in the tourist police let Iran down. If it weren’t for him, you see, I’d leave Iran with only fond memories.

A very Tehran experience, Part 2. In which we hitch a ride with the Backstreet Boys.

  

Having recovered from our nightmare taxi journey with a fake beer and a cheeseburger (ref 'A very Tehran experience, part 1') we made our way to Cafe Parsa upstairs for a nightcap. We'd met the young barista the night before and wanted to make good our promise to drop by his establishment at the next opportunity. In Iran, the coffee shop is raised to the status of a cocktail bar and it's the place where Iranians, particularly younger, liberal Iranians, meet up with friends. Some cafes specialise in an atmosphere of political 'entre nous'. Through others wafts the fragrance of zeitgeist liberal internationalism. Others make no pretense and simply vibrate with flirtation.

Cafe Parsa sits astride the second and third state. It's dark chocolate coloured walls and sexy lighting could confuse the most conservative mullah into ordering a double round of Grey Goose. This place took hot chocolate to new heights we wanted to climb. There was white hot chocolate, there was dark hot chocolate, and there was milk hot chocolate. There was plain chocolate, coffee chocolate and Turkish chocolate. A box of chocolate was slashed open in our honour and the discs shoved in our mouths and down our throats like frois gras ducks. The viscosity of our drinks resembled double cream.

As the place got rowdier it became clear calls had been made that four Australian women were there drinking hot chocolate and young men from all over Tehran started to turn up to watch us. Red pandas riding unicycles wouldn't have garnered such interest. Moses from the Caspian Sea joined Hossein the shop owner. Mohammed and Mehti joined others unnamed who came and left and came back again. We spoke Farsi, we spoke English, we spoke French and Spanish. We ate and drank more chocolate. We took photos. More people came and went.

Somewhere in our cocoa-ambrosia haze we realised it was half ten and I was in danger of missing my flight to London. Yelps, apologies, and requests for the bill flew around the cafe. We dutifully engaged in our standard confusion over whether the figure was in Rials or Toman, got it wrong, sorted it out and made rash promises about mobiles, Facebook and meeting up in Burma next year. But how to get home? Nervous of another dud taxi we asked Cafe Parsa to call a taxi and translate our hotel directions. No need, no need, assured the bunch of them....Hossein has his car...he would take us himself!

Now, the sensible response to this was obviously to insist on a (registered) taxi and so of course we cheered Hossein, shouted our farewells and clattered downstairs to squeeze our chocolate bloated selves into his car which I can only surmised Peugeot built for dwarves.

On the downside it was possible Hossein was a cafe owner and serial killer on the side. On the upside his car had seatbelts. Seatbelts are of limited supply in Iran where the favoured motor safety device is the toddler. If you're lucky enough to have a toddler (or even two) you shout 'Shotgun' and wedge the toddler between yourself and the windscreen, confident the small beasty will take the main hit in a likely accident. Hossein had seatbelts and we made good use of them.

As we screeched away down Gandi Avenue we suddenly entered the third phase of our Very Tehran Experience....the Car Party. Before we knew what was going on Hossein cranked up the stereo and there they were the Backstreet Boys singing 'Backstreet's Back, Alright!' Well, I can only tell you it was heaven. I don't think that album has been played in Britain in a decade but on that wonderful trip, with Hossein as our DJ, we boomed, we screeched, we shouted, we car-danced (difficult in the cramped condition) and cheered. We detoured for petrol which simply doubles as a meeting spot and Hossein's cousins, brothers and friends gathered to wave through the windows, wonder at our beauty and generally enjoy a day at the tourist zoo. We moved on to some Shakira, then a song which was apparently about Hossein and then another burst of Backstreet's finest. Our fears of kidnap were soothed as we sped down streets we recognised and even started making helpful shortcut suggestions...many of which seemed to end in left hand turns from right hand lanes.

This is a Tehran night out. Admittedly, we were a little on the old side, but when you can't hang out at home, or you can't pick up boys and girls in bars, you cruise the streets, stereos on, swapping numbers on paper through windows and promising bootleg whisky and a good time. Just as we were about to leave this fabulous country, we felt like we'd finally arrived.

End, Part 2.

A very Tehran experience, Part 1. In which we go in search of Gandi but find Africa instead

To celebrate our final night in Iran together Gabs and I decided to head back to the oh-so-fash north of the city for a final dinner and coffee with two of our travel buddies Kim and Kirree. We were headed to the well-known Market cafe on Gandi Street where the menu was kebab-free.

Gabs and I ordered a taxi at 5.30pm, keen a do a little window shopping before dinner. Kim and Kirree were to join us at the cafe at half seven. Bang on time our taxi driver bounded into reception, raring to go. With some Iranian jazz on the stereo we pulled away with flair into the jaws of peak hour Tehran traffic. So far, so good.

Now, we'd done this journey at 8.30pm the night before and it had taken around 20 minutes. I figured it might well take an hour in peak traffic, maybe even a little more. Tehran traffic is notorious and we had to travel on a couple of major roads and motorways to get where we wanted to go. No matter. We were relaxed, we had time, we had water.

For the first hour of the journey we were so thoroughly engaged in conversation about our trip we didn't notice the time. The traffic was appalling but we were moving along. At the end of the hour I began to think we'd used a few more motorways than I had remembered...but our driver seemed confident he was headed to our desired location.

Somewhere in the second hour of the journey we voiced our private fears our driver was lost. Nothing looked familiar, except that we had passed Africa Boulevard about four times from six different directions. We passed three hospitals, a football stadium and a very large mosque. In reaction to our enquiry...'Gandi?' the good man denied all knowledge of English but offered us a consoling cigarette and a shrug in relation to the traffic. Worryingly though, he began to stop other cars for directions to Gandi. None of them bore us fruitful progress.

A little over 15 minutes into our third hour, when our water had run out and the wailing started, we understood we had entered Taxi Pergatory, where one is damned forever to drive on the highways and byways of northern Tehran. Leaping to our death on the motorway looked to be the only sensible option. But which motorway? And where were we? We could not understand how we had fallen into this unfortunate state of damnation. All we could moan from our back seat was 'Reza Shah...where art thou, travel leader?' But The Prince of Persia had flown home to Shiraz to recover from the 16-day social, historial and political turorial of ancient and modern Persia and repetitive questions regarding the meeting time for dinner. We were on our own.

At the two hour thirty mark, as we began to wave down police from the back seat, we suddenly pulled into Gandi Avenue - our desired destination - and motored gracefully to the front door of Market, where our friends calmly waited for us. They had left one and half hours after us but arrived 15 minutes before us.

I don't wish to sound dramatic but as I stumbled out of the taxi I thought I knew how that young Israeli boy Gilad Shalit felt being released after years with his Palestinian hosts. Out of the confusion surged a grateful euphoria mingled with fear that we might not recognise the world we were stepping back into...so long was our time in captivity.
The end - Part 1.

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.

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.