Beginner Skiers in Tehran Do an 8
Memories, pictures and people from a 4½ day trip
I needed a break.
Tehran?
❶ Flight tickets were fairly cheap. ❷ I had no idea what to expect. ❸ They had snow clad mountains. ❹ I had heard good things.
But, Aren’t They the Bad Ones?
The western media paints a dark picture of Iran but the recent nuclear deal and subsequent lifting of some sanctions has somewhat alleviated that although lacking human rights is obviously still a major concern.
Our wonderful brain helps us navigate the world by grouping and simplifying what it encounters to make sense of it all. The huge flip-side to this being us not seeing other people as acting, feeling, living human individuals just like ourselves.
Curiosity drove me to Tehran with hopes of learning more about the people I would meet and maybe myself.
Arriving
The dapper older gentleman next to me on the midnight plane from Istanbul played Candy Crush all the way only interrupted by our 2am hot pasta in a very well lit cabin.
Sleep deprived and anxious about getting in I landed around 3am. Obtaining the visa at the airport is a slightly confusing 5-step process with some waiting involved but it was done in just 2 hours.
That was faster than anticipated and with no one awake at the hostel (and no number to call) I got to walk around and experience the city waking up before finally getting some breakfast and a quick nap.
Exchanging money is easy but you have to bring enough $ or € for your entire trip (sanctions). Currency in Iran is slightly confusing as prices are quoted in either Tomans or Rials and you have e.g. 10000, 100000 and 1000000 notes.
Transportation
Metros, taxis and buses all over the world look more or less the same. The main difference in Tehran being the “women only” sections in bigger public transport. Some women—especially those travelling with others—sit in the shared section though.
Apart from the conventional taxis they also have:
- Snapp (think Iranian Uber but where you can pay in cash)
- shared taxis where you’ll hop on at a crossing, drive for a couple of blocks, pay the driver and hop off again.
The first time on a shared taxi I tried paying the equivalent of 0.5€ but the driver only accepted 0.25€. Some of the guys I met bought next day domestic flight tickets for 35€ which is roughly the same as 100 two way trips on the metro.
Neda
Shortly prior to travelling I posted on couchsurfing that I’d be in Tehran for 5 days wanting to meet other people and to go skiing. Neda had seen that, contacted me and we’d agreed to meet for lunch the first day.
Stepping out of the metro I was slightly unsure how to greet and walk around with a local girl but apart from generally avoiding physical contact in public it was just like in any western country.
Except.
Never have I met someone as eager to help you, show you around and introduce you to the Persian culture and history as her.
Her own story was just as interesting coming from the familiy behind the oldest English school in Tehran. Both she and her parents had studied in California where they also had a home.
Her mother couldn’t travel back since the Iranian authorities kept her passport for 1.5 years the last time she was in Tehran. Neda herself lived most of the time in Tehran to help her retiring father run the family business. Her younger bother plays pro football in lower divisions in Spain — a proud family tradition since the grandfather used to captain the Iranian side many moons ago.
Azadi Tower
This iconic structure rises over the western part of the city — in many ways in juxtaposition to itself. Bombastic yet elegant. Ultra modern yet unmistakably Persian. Built in 1971 to celebrate the old Persian Empire and named the Shahyad (for the Shah) but changed to Azadi (freedom) and used for revolution propaganda.
There are other incredible buildings, museums and sights in Tehran like The National Jewelry Treasury, The Golestan Palace, The Music Museum and many more but none that tells the story of current Iran as clear as the Freedom Tower.
And it’s just a jawdropping piece of architecture.
Smog
Tehran have failed to deal with pollution from especially cars leading to even and uneven numbered cars only being allowed in the city center on alternating days and some schools being closed in mid december in an attempt to quickly limit traffic.
They seem to know the solution as you see animations on the metro of a smiling bus zipping up smoky, sad cars but implementing that seems as hard in Tehran as most other big cities around the world.
Fresh Air
What wealthier Tehranians do is get out of the city. I’d highly recommend walking through the Sa’dabad Palace/Complex in the early afternoon and head to the narrow valley of Darband where outdoor restaurants with fairytale style lightning cover both sides of the babbling river.
I went there with Neda, her lovely father Amir who immediately gave you fresh strawberries from southern Iran that he had just bought and Nick, a fellow couchsurfer from Singapore and allround extremely likeable guy.
Pepe
Pepe had contacted me on CS explaining me about the skiing options outside Tehran and offered me to join him. He was doing a day-trip up to his beloved mountains where he has be going for more than 30 years.
There are multiple options just outside Tehran and we ended up going to Darband Sar (map) since Dizin was inaccessible due to avalanches, Shemshak was closed due to a dispute between the land owner and the skiing club running the place. You can also ski in Tochal where the telecabin goes directly from Tehran but it’s more suitable for beginners.
Neda joined us for the most picturesque and unexpected day of skiing I’ve ever done.
Pepe invited me to stay in his apartment after returning to Tehran while Neda had to hurry to a party. At first I thought not going to the party was a mistake but we had that kind of magic talk and evening that is often easier with a stranger in life but friend in spirit. A combination of mountain air and fine scotch probably also helped.
He told me about being an ambassador’s child in Syria (or Lebanon?), experiences from the war against Iraq in an army he was forced to join and about challenges in adult life—parts of which I could very well relate to.
No Trousers
The 3rd night in the dorm I slept a little longer than normal and when I got up my only pair of trousers were gone and nowhere to be found. I figured walking the streets of Tehran without pants wasn’t an option but a friendly co-traveller quickly let me borrow his.
Iran attracts a special kind of travellers and the fact that there weren’t many of us created a bond that made helping, giving/sharing and inviting the most natural thing. As a traveller you are also showered by the hospitality of the Iranians which leaves you with a natural urge to give back and pass it forward.
Helia
I finally found my trousers and went out to meet Helia which had also reached out to me on CS offering to show me around. She worked in an office that helped Iranians with visa and green card applications which sounded like a tough spot between bureaucratic and corrupt authorities and wealthy clients paying big sums and being used to getting their way.
That didn’t seem to affect her spirits as we spent a great time together going to an impressive display of regional instruments at the Tehran Museum Of Music. You get your own audioguide which explains about the instruments and how they sound and we ended up in the basement workshop (not sure if it is part of the official museum) where they were restoring and building instruments and let us try out all of them.
There is an old library in the museum where we heard the oldest Iranian recordings from 1906 and a pre-revolution recording of a female solo-artist singing at the Grand Hotel which to my surprise was very controversial also back then.
Foreign Relations
Iran is the first muslim country I’ve travelled to after the Mohammad drawings where I didn’t hide the fact I was Danish and/or had to explain what the drawings were about and be held accountable for them as an individual.
Partly because it’s now hopefully forgotten but also because Iranians more than any understand how it is to be taken “hostage” in fight you don’t feel part of. People were disappointed in the international society and the U.S. in particular but it was diminished by the eagerness to welcome anyone with an open mind and to show them how the international image of Iranians was wrong.
The number one question you get is “how is Iran?” and gratitude when telling how wonderful it truly is.
It’s with that in mind one should look at the official attitude towards especially the U.S. as it’s evident from the iconic posters and artwork on what used to be the U.S. embassy.
Babak
It’s not often you meet a true artist but Neda and I met Babak in his gallery on my first evening i Tarjish. He was friends with a man who had been teaching at the English institute many years ago.
Babak himself didn’t speak much English but you could tell he was a gentle and poetic soul who kindly offered to teach us calligraphy — I would have donated one kidney for an opportunity like this but obviously wasn’t allowed to pay.
We met on my last day in Tehran. At first he drew the last line of a Hafez poem that a lady had ordered. Seeing him carefully inking it on corkskin and reciting the entire poem with great passion and joy filled me with awe even without understanding a single word.
To those of you who don’t know Hafez (I didn’t) here are two short poems:
I caught the happy virus last night
When I was out singing beneath the stars.
It is remarkably contagious —
So kiss me.— Hafez
And:
And still, after all this time,
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.— Hafez
“Thank You”
I have been blessed with many teachers from different countries and traditions but never have I tried something this difficult and at the same time felt as encouraged and blessed as when learning from Babak.
He let me use his finest tools and didn’t disturb me and gave me minimal corrections even after struggling with ب (b) for the 18th time and not getting it right. He could se I was experimenting my way into understanding the shape and movements required to get it.
Then the 19th time it clicked and he immediately said “thank you, thank you” and proudly showed it to Neda who by then had completed the first 30 perfect ب that were all prettier than mine.
He didn’t thank me just for trying. Nor did he thank me for the outcome as it was still lacking. Instead he thanked me for the progress I had allowed him to make with me which I think is a didactic concept unfortunately lost in most modern teaching.
In the end he had me humbled and fighting to hold back tears as he carefully drew and gifted me my name in calligraphic style. My name is what I use to identify myself and having a master being spontaneously devoted to perfecting it was the perfect ending to a session that still brings the widest of smiles on my face.
Babak also wanted to draw one for my girlfriend of which I have none. He seemed politely and genuinely surprised so I had to ask him if he had a girlfriend. I wasn’t surprised when he said “300” with a shy but cocky smile.
New Year
Theranians know how to party and I would love to tell all about it but I can’t tell too much as the penalty for simple things as e.g. intoxication can be quite severe — from flagellation to death sentence for repeat offenders although bribing the policemen works in most cases.
Luckily the police didn’t show and the around 50 of us (Iranians, exil-Iranians on visit, tourists, ngo-workers from Iraq on holiday etc.) could continue the spontaneous party in a not so quiet rebellion against people in power.
We did so inside an enormous time capsule of a house where a lot hadn’t changed since 1979. This was at once slightly sad because it could feel like a museum of lost times with its ageing pictures, furniture and unkept garden but at the same time also extremely life-affirming that people refuse to change even under immense pressure.
Doing an 8
I left the party and was on my way to the airport in a taxi at 3am. I was trying to get a quick nap and sober up before having to go through security when a term Neda had introduced me to popped up — doing an 8.
Pizzaschnitte fahren (going like a pizza slice), ploughing or doing an 8 are all disparate ways of describing the same thing. In this case a beginner on skies that keeps the tips together and thus forms a flipped v-shape similar to a slice of pizza, a farmer’s plough or the number 8 which in Arabic and Farsi is: ٨
Even though we aren’t speaking the same language and using the same weird idioms we’re all alike — humans trying to live a full and happy life.
The Iranians I met are just better at it than most.
Thanks for reading,
— Andreas
More Pictures and Videos?
Have a peek at Pepe’s Instagram — highly recommended.
I’d also recommend you follow:
Apps
I’ve linked to the iOS apps but they should all have Android siblings. I’d highly recommend getting a prepaid local SIM card there too as they’re cheap. A VPN is needed if you want to visit certain sites like e.g. Facebook.
Snapp is the Iranian Uber (you can pay with cash) but it’s very easy if you need to get around where public transport doesn’t go or maybe at night.
Telegram and WhatsApp are the two most used apps as they offer encrypted messaging over data network which is very cheap and convenient when you have a nosy government.
Google Maps in Tehran didn’t work offline so I stumbled upon maps.me which uses Open Street Map. I travelled a lot with the metro so having a map that only included the current stations was handy (maps in the metro also had stops that didn’t yet exist).
