Let me share with you some of my personal thoughts about Iran after my visit in April 2017. And oh boy people told me what to expect. Back then, it all sounded so bizarre to me, that I simply considered it to be an exaggeration. However it was completely true.
Oh Iran! Let’s be honest here. Many of you visited this country for sure. And I’m guessing that when you announced for instance to your parents that you’re going there for a trip, most likely you could read from their faces the “are you nuts??” expression. Yeah, unfortunately the picture they see in their minds is something close to men treating women like trash, ongoing war that devastated the country, poor girls that have to be covered in black from top to bottom and overall not interesting desert-like piece of land. For those of you who are planning to go there, you better brace your selves for these kinds of reactions. Fortunately however, this is nowhere near the truth that you will witness.
I could go on for hours with the details about politics, religion, rich ancient and recent history. Even longer about unbelievable beauty of ancient cities, forests, waterfalls and valleys. Night sky with millions of stars just above your head best observable from the desert. Not to mention that the following morning with the rising sun you can see snowy peaks of mountains from the exact same spot in the desert. And if you’re interested in two hours by bus you’re there. On top of the mountains skiing.
Instead, I want to talk a bit about something you cannot google out or read on Wikipedia page. I want to tell you about my personal experience with people there. I haven’t visited many countries yet. But if there is more people like this also in other countries (and I believe that there is), my fate in humanity is restored. I have never seen such willingness to help, such high level of hospitality and such kindness as I’ve seen with Persians. Out of my 3 weeks that I stayed there with my fiancée Martina, we slept only 4 nights in a hostel. Otherwise we were always invited to their houses, we were invited to dine with their families and countless other ways of help were offered to us during this time. People were stopping their cars as we walked on a sidewalk and gave us a free ride. Others were giving us free meals in food stands. Once, we were just having a breakfast on a bench and a car stopped by, a lady stepped out of the car and asked, if everything’s OK and if we don’t need help with something. We took quite a lot of souvenirs from home, but we were out of all of them literally in a first couple of days, because we could not let this hospitality be unappreciated. We made some awesome friends there to whom we’re really thankful for everything. You can call that a luck. But my God if that was a luck I should have bought a lottery ticket because this was everyday experience throughout the whole 3 weeks. As we could not pay for many of these acts of kindness back right away, we figured, that we will at least try to provide the same experience to other travelers visiting us in Slovakia. That is the very least we can do pay our debt to the public. As I like to say now: ,,If you’re lost on an unknown place, with no clue what to do, no money in a pocket, hungry, thirsty and with no shelter, you better pray that this place is Iran. Because in that case you’ll come out just fine.’’
Daniel, Ali, Mahyar, Pooria, Asiyeh, Riyaz, Mohammad and many others thank you once again.