I Landed In Iran And The Government Imposed An Internet Lockdown
It felt like a modern soul trapped in an ancient body
Why would you choose Iran as a travel destination? That too, solo.
Looks like someone has a death wish!
Do you want to get bombed?
Despite such negativity, I took a leap of faith and booked my flight ticket from Mumbai to Iran. What happened after that was a journey that touched me in a million ways. It changed me as a person.
Now, Iran is not an easy country to travel to. Credit cards don’t work because the banking system is not connected with the world. The currency is highly volatile and hyper-inflated. So, you need to carry cash.
Don’t ask me what you should do if you lose it.
The currency here is super messed up. The notes have so many zeroes that it takes a while to get used to them. If you don’t count the number of zeroes on the notes, you are bound to overpay. But that happens rarely.
Courtesy, the people of Iran. They won’t ask you to pay most of the time. Forget overpaying.
They have their own social etiquette called Taroof.
You walk into a restaurant and, the owner realises that you are a foreigner. He will refuse your payment.
Does that mean he wants to offer you food for free? Maybe. It depends on how many times he refuses. If you insist on paying the bill for the 4th time, he will probably take it. But if he keeps on refusing to take the money, it means he really wishes to offer it for free. A guest is like a god for them.
This happened to me a zillion times. The moment someone came to know that I was a foreigner, they would refuse to receive money. In one instance, I had to literally force the money into the shopkeeper’s hand.
Everything was hunky-dory. As I was busy clicking pictures at a famous tourist site; the government decided to triple the gas price. That led to nationwide protests (Bloody November). The government, an autocratic one, did as it pleased by calling an internet blackout in the country. The police led a crackdown on the protestors.
I know that sounds dramatic. But, my fears had come true. I thought I was going to get stuck in this country forever.
Of course, it freaked out my folks back at home. Do I even need to mention that?
But then, there are warm and welcoming Iranians who helped me in every way possible. Who needs internet for travelling? And I was having trouble figuring out the places even with the internet.
As soon as someone realised that I was a foreigner having difficulty figuring out my route, they just popped up to help this traveller in distress.
Once, I asked a shopkeeper for a sim-card store. He sent one of his guys to walk me to the store. It was a fifteen-minute walk from his shop and, I had not even asked for help. They behaved as if they had a moral responsibility to help me.
Whenever I had trouble clicking pictures at a tourist spot, the locals came to my rescue. They not just helped me to click photos but also guided me to strike the right pose.
Travelling in a country without internet in a different country seemed like a daunting task in the beginning. But, hey, people did travel before the internet and social media. It’s our constant urge to stay connected with the online world. It has got nothing to do with travelling.
The best part about not having the internet was that I had conversations with people in the real world and not the virtual ones.
There was an instance when I got down in Tehran in the wee hours of the morning. Having internet would have helped because I almost gave up on finding the address of my hostel. As I said, someone always appeared for help even though late.
They don’t receive a lot of tourists because of the negative image portrayed by the western media. But, they leave no stone unturned for the hospitality of those few.
The posters outside the defunct U.S. Embassy (converted to a museum) freaked me out. The government runs active propaganda against the U.S. Does this mean that the Iranian people are warmongers? No!
They want to live their life peacefully. The tough sanctions have been crippling the economy day by day. The ordinary people have to bear the brunt, making their life miserable. There is nerve-racking poverty in some regions.
To me, Iran felt like a modern soul trapped in an ancient body. Women have the compulsion of wearing a hijab in public. But, they do not dress conservatively in their homes. They dress up like any average western woman.
Iranians enjoy house parties, smoke sheeshas, sing and dance, but everything happens inside the four walls. Because the laws are stringent. Even things such as dancing in public could get you arrested.
All said and done, the highlight of my trip was the people of Iran. I loved to see their eyes sparkle when I told them that I was a tourist. I was approached by countless strangers to have a chat. People went out of their way to help me. A man opened his shop to fetch a pen and paper; he drew a map to explain because of the language barrier. Seriously, who would do that?
There is a stark contrast between what the media portrays and reality. The economy is in turmoil and, it’s crushing the Iranians, yet I didn’t notice any compromise with their giving nature.
I have shared my experiences in detail in my travelogue — My Iranian Diary.
