I spent the day in Dubai on top of a double decker tour bus, accompanied only by senior western citizens, watching the most extrodinary wealth and luxuary clash with the poor Indians and Pakistaniis living and wrking under slavelike conditions in the 45c degree heat. I tend to be very liberal and pro capitalism but its to much greed and waste going on in Dubai for it to be in my tea cup. Also Im doubtful that theres "healthy" money backing all thoseconstruction projects and that theres really people waiting to move in. The future will tell.
The best thing in Dubai was Hassan, an Iraqi/Canadien whom I sat next to on the flight to Shiraz. After giving me a full review of the Iraqi history, he had his brother driving me all around Dubai and eventually to my hotell. Hassan = awesome.
The flight from Dubai to Shiraz offered a similar experience. This time Mohsen, an Iranian working in Dubai, very "hush-hush" gave me his point of view of hte current events in Iran. After that he organized a taxi, which he insisted on paying, and drove me to a suitable hotell in down town Shiraz. At the hotell he ran up and down the stares to find me a good room and then bargained a good price for me. Mohsen > awesome.
I hardly made it up to my room when someone called on the hotell room phone. It turned out to be a Japaneese tourist (160cm tall, poor english, HUGE Nikon camera and an affinity for flowers and architecture). He wondered if I wanted to share a guide to Persepolis the next day - which we agreed on. After that me and my Japaneese friend went out to explore the town. When Youshke wanted to enter the second garden, where they apparently had some really nice red roses, I excused myself and carried on towards Shiraz University. As I started walking there were loads of Basij driving by on motorcycles (one driving and one on the back with a bat). I know I promised to stay away from the disturbances but I really wanted to see this with my own eyes, so I carried on. However, I never saw any demonstrations because the University was closed and the area restricted. Nevertheless, I met an Iranian student who told me about the resistence and other interesting things.
So, yesterday me and Youshke went to Persepolis and the nearby tombs of Xerxes, and other Persian kings with our awesome guide Mahmod. Coming back, five hours later, Mahmod took us to the Bazaar which was a pretty unique cool and unique experience which took you back about hundred years in time. After that we had Chelow Kabab before we went back to the hotell where I fell asleep and slept for 12hours.
Im not sure if Ill leave tomorrow or on sunday for Yazd, Im going to the bus station now to see my options. After that I will meet Farshad and hell you me some sights in the north east end of town where I have not gone yet.
This was just a resume of events so far, Ill try to be more specific later on. Anyhow, everything is great. The people are very curious and interested. Some of them dont know more than one or two words in English but they come up to you and want to shake your hand and take a picture, and with my farsi phrase book the "conversation" can last for several minutes still. And then theres the other kind, the students, who often are pretty good at english and very knowledgeable about everything from persian history to politics to the western way of life and values.
Fun fact: Cyrus the Great (more or less the founder of the Persian empire and Persepolis) liberated the jews from the Babylonians, established rule of law and gave the right to all people within the Persian empire to exercise whatever religion or faith they wanted. This was 2500 years ago - kind of Ironic today..
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