When things turned sour in Shiraz
My love story with Iran started with this city – the city of poets (Hafez did live here!)…
I couldn’t help but return to see it. Feel. Remember.
It went smoothly at first, minus the traffic jam.
Staying in a traditional home;
Visiting a hip restaurant (hipper than I found in any other place in Iran);
/one small note: the food and the drinks – modern/Iranian fusion – were delicious/
Vakil Bath and Vakil Mosque /built mid-18th-century and restored in the 19th century, during the Qajar Period, it is extraordinary at night/…
…and then came the time to see the bazaar again…
Asking for the price of a havij bastani had gotten out of my system many days before.
I had never felt even the slightest intention to be cheated by any seller during my first or my second trip to Iran. I loved the people and I trusted them.
But there are rotten apples everywhere apparently – especially when you’re charged 4 times the normal price for your favourite carrot drink with ice cream.
Sadly /and this was my thought back then…/, globalisation and globalised ‘customs’ have reached even the genuine country of Iran, where the culture and the core of the nation are preserved.
Now, 3 years later, I understand even better the danger perceived back then. We should fight and keep our national identities intact, our way of being as our ancestors did. In every country of this world.
…and I hope to return to Iran soon and find Shiraz as I had back in 2014.
‘How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its Being.
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened’
― Hafez
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