Our overall impression of Iran

Our overall impression of Iran is positive. We had been reading about it and listening other peoples experiences, so we were quite prepared for the trip. And everyone were saying how friendly and helpful locals are. This is exactly how it was. Even though there were some minor misunderstandings and annoying people, but you get that anywhere where you go. And there is also the cultural differences, but I guess as a male you won´t experience cultural shock there.

There are some things that drew our attention overall:

• When you go to the bazaars and stay looking something for a little longer, the traders are not trying to get to your head to sell you something, rather it happens more that you have to go ask yourself some help from the trader.

• When you talk to someone, even if they didn´t speak English, they would try to manage somehow or find someone who would speak. It is not always easy, but in the end you usually get the idea what they are trying to say. There are those who speak fluently as well, but the smaller the place, the lower the chances finding someone who speaks any at all.

• When you ask for some help on the street, can´t find a place and need some directions, even if they don´t speak English and you point the place on the map where you wanna go (preferably map has both Farsi and western names on them) they will point the way or even in some cases take you all the way there, without asking anything for return. But sometimes it happens as well that none of the locals know the place and the map is not so clear to them (their own maps tend to be little bit different as well, than the western ones, as they sometimes leave out small streets, alleys and you can´t measure distances). Lonely planet´s maps are usually quite good, but can be confusing as well. Local maps are unreliable, but tend to have more concentrated/extra information on them.

• When you are looking for a good place to eat, do not set your hopes high, if you are not in Darband, Esfahan or some parts of Tehran and Shiraz as well. This was probably one of the challenges on our trip, but this wasn´t culinary trip anyways, so we managed. And forget about our usual fast food, it is impossible to find. It is quite usual that the restaurants that you find in TripAdvisor do not exist anymore, so you can´t rely on that, especially if you are not in Tehran, Esfahan or Shiraz.

• When you are taking a taxi from the airport, make sure you do agree on the price on the spot, do not believe anything they say about taximeter or traffic or what ever, they will screw you. Probably the taxi drivers are the ones you need to be careful with during your trip or otherwise it will turn out to be more expensive than you hoped for. But then again travelling longer distances and if you are 2+, it is usually worth it to take a taxi instead of a bus, as you can have stops where you want, pass through places or even the taxi driver can suggest some places to visit sometimes.

• When you want to buy something from the bazaar, in our experience there is one place only for it and that is Esfahan, but if you have something specific, there are some area specific things in local bazaars, be sure to ask.

• Hotels in Iran are lacking. There is not enough of them and they are pretty poor quality (but usually clean and friendly). So this is somewhat disappointment. Always take a star or even two down from what the Iranian hotels are promising, to get to compare it to western standards. This is definitely one thing Iran needs to improve on if they are hoping for more tourism.

I general we are very happy with our trip and it was well worth the time and would be a place to return some future date, as the country is huge and there are still many more places to see.