I'm glad you finally updated us. Those pictures are absolutely fabulous! I love the crockery.
Not everyone is a traveller - they just don't get it. If you have the adventurous spirit, that's how you do it - with a bag of essentials, you simply follow your nose.
Iran is one of the great ancient lands, with such wealth of culture and landscape. There are two directions. One is to make friends with a local who then opens the doors to the closed extended family worlds. This is great, as it reveals so much you could never see otherwise. The downside of this is that they then try to corral your space and time, and you can become hostage to their attitudes of where you should go, and what you should see.
The other is to strike out in complete freedom, meet whoever you meet and see whatever comes you way without concern about whether it's something grotty or spiffy. I recommend you always try to head for the 'old city' of whatever city you are in.
Both directions are good.
But Rudi, how are you coping emotionally with all this?
