Travel to Tehran, Iran.

Country/Town visited: Tehran, Iran
Date of stay: Dec 2010
Where you stayed:  Mountain resort
Travelled with: Friends
Tour or pre planned: Pre-planned 

What had led to this madness? How did we get here? What was I doing here and was I enjoying myself??  

We were in Tehran, the Capital of Iran and the seat of power of one of the axis of evil. We had heard a lot of things about Iran; that they cut off a person’s hand if you were caught stealing, the Government's infamous nuclear reactor for “peaceful purposes.” We had also heard that champagne dry powder could be found in the hills and that a lift pass was only USD$12 a day. This is what we had travelled three days on the train to find out, and by our experiences so far, we were gonna have to do some reassessments of our thinking. 

Iran is country about the size of France, located in the slightly hot neighbourhood of the Middle-East. With Iraq on one side and Pakistan on the other, it’s a country with a history that few can compare with. The majority of Iranians are said to be descended from the Aryans, who settled in Iran sometime around 2000BC. In 550 BC a bloke called Cyrus the Great made a bit of a name for himself by creating the largest empire the world had ever seen. He and his successors held sway for 150 years over an empire stretching from India to the edges of Greece in the west. These days Iran is often hyped in the media for their part in the “axis of evil”, their dubious nuclear weapons programme, or the fact that brinkmanship seems to be a favourite pastime of their Govt. 

We found the reality of Iran to be far from the hype of the media storm. The hospitality and welcome shown to us by the locals embarrassed us with its generosity. Perhaps most importantly that they were Persians and not Arabs. The word Iran ‘Land of the Aryans’. They have more genetically in common with Europeans than with Arabs and it was not unusual to meet blue-eyed, fair headed Iranian.  

But this was all secondary to our plan, we were here to snowboard.

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