We are safely in Shiraz. Access to the blog is unreliable (another aspect of Iran's China links?!) so I am doing this by email.
First the grumbles - it was a miserable flight - In the much acclaimed A350, seats are uncomfortable and made me resolve to take only day flights or shell out for business class. The A320 from Doha to Shiraz was MUCH better.
We sorted out our visas at Shiraz, (very bureaucratic and reminded me of Russia, the only difference being the smiles of the Iranians - none in Russia), had our luggage XRayed ( a bit late I would have thought) and our hotel transfer was waiting for us. We got to the hotel at 5am and crashed for a few hours.
Have just sampled the breakfast and not being very hungry, we tasted everything from the two kinds of lentil porridge, halva, dates (lovely), Iranian bread, pomelo. More to try tomorrow including "kookoo" (looks like chocolate cake). There is a mixture that looks like an Iranian version of "kaya" (coconut Jam) but is orange (pumpkin or carrot based I guess) and tastes very good. Their sausage is in the same category as the pickled fish when we were in Norway - as Rob said, "don't get between me and pickled fish...."
Iranian friendliness was apparent even before we got to the Shiraz terminal. One man struck up a conversation with us in the bus between the aircraft and the terminal - "Where are you from... " and then we got his story - living in London, just married, wants to bring wife to UK but cannot, thinking of Australia, has friends in Australia etc etc.
More to come - still sorting out how to post pics.
First the grumbles - it was a miserable flight - In the much acclaimed A350, seats are uncomfortable and made me resolve to take only day flights or shell out for business class. The A320 from Doha to Shiraz was MUCH better.
We sorted out our visas at Shiraz, (very bureaucratic and reminded me of Russia, the only difference being the smiles of the Iranians - none in Russia), had our luggage XRayed ( a bit late I would have thought) and our hotel transfer was waiting for us. We got to the hotel at 5am and crashed for a few hours.
Have just sampled the breakfast and not being very hungry, we tasted everything from the two kinds of lentil porridge, halva, dates (lovely), Iranian bread, pomelo. More to try tomorrow including "kookoo" (looks like chocolate cake). There is a mixture that looks like an Iranian version of "kaya" (coconut Jam) but is orange (pumpkin or carrot based I guess) and tastes very good. Their sausage is in the same category as the pickled fish when we were in Norway - as Rob said, "don't get between me and pickled fish...."
Iranian friendliness was apparent even before we got to the Shiraz terminal. One man struck up a conversation with us in the bus between the aircraft and the terminal - "Where are you from... " and then we got his story - living in London, just married, wants to bring wife to UK but cannot, thinking of Australia, has friends in Australia etc etc.
More to come - still sorting out how to post pics.
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