CASPIAN

By Kambiz Taleghani

20080728

After entering Iran at the Azerbaijan border, Astara, we drove along the Caspian Sea until dark.   Stayed at Sepid Kenar Hotel near Anzali port.  

They had a two bedroom villa available which worked well for us.  About $150USD per night, including breakfast.  Nice and clean air conditioned place.  Since Adriana and Leila were now required to wear head covers and overalls when outside, it was a relief to be able to be free of the new attire inside a spacious villa.   The hotel had installed heavy curtains to completely insulate the interior.  The weather was hot.  

Nearby, about a few hundred meters away, the government had placed heavy curtains which extended into the sea for quite a distance.    Unlike the past, now under Islamic Government all beaches in Iran are segregated.   The men must swim on one side, while the women on the other side with some 200meters of distance between them!    Very awkward looking to most people.  See picture.   We hardly saw anyone going to the beach during our 2-3 days of stay there.    The water looked so inviting.   It was a perfect beach weather.

The process of making hotel reservations:

Due to a 3-day weekend coming up, I had to make reservation at our next planned stop, Raamsar, which was on our way to Tehran.   All hotels were expected to be full.   Caspian Sea is a vacation spot for many Iranians, especially those who live in and around Tehran.   In Iran, due to Western sanctions, you cannot use credit cards.  So, to reserve a hotel room, I had to first call the central reservation number.  They had two rooms still available.   They wanted me to deposit the room charge in a bank first, before confirming the reservation.  I was provided with a bank name and account number.   At that point I had to find the nearest branch of the bank, which happened to be in the next town from where we were, drive to the bank, and deposit the money in the hotel's account.   After obtaining a receipt, I had to find a place that had a fax machine, and then fax the receipt to Tehran with my name and dates of check-in/check-out handwritten on the receipt.   I deposited the money and got my receipt.  Now to find a fax machine!  There was a camera store near the bank.  The owner looked at my perplexed face, felt sorry, and faxed my deposit slip.   Bless him for that.   That morning when I picked up the phone I thought I would be done in a five minutes. No, it took ¾ of the day before I was done with the reservation!    The inefficiencies are astonishing to most, but the locals seemed to take it in stride as one more aspect of life there.

In Sepid Kenar Hotel there were a few Germans and French visitors.  They seemed to be connected to Iranian families.   Actually seeing any non-locals was unusual.  The route we were taking was not exactly the most popular scenic tourist route in the world!

Visited Anzali lagoon.   This is an 18000-acre fresh water lagoon which empties into Caspian sea.   We took a high-speed motor boat which Leila drove (see video and pictures).  

Saw Iranian women's Olympic rowing team in practice there.    They were covered head-to-toe in that hot weather.    Saw few of them just pour water over themselves despite their male minders' protestations!

Interesting story of how we saw the lagoon.   I went to a petrol station to fill-up the tank.  They had diesel fuel.     The attendant made a mistake and filled the tank with gasoline!   Now we had to empty the fuel tank.  Not so easy and quick.   A group gathered around the car.  A few people tried siphoning out the fuel.  No luck.   We checked the harnesses to see if we could detach the fuel tank from the chassis and then empty it.   No luck.   Some attendants said that was not a big deal and I should drive on.   No way. 

Diesel engine will suffer permanent damage if run on gasoline.  The owner, who was a man in his early 70's, said his son had a mechanic shop across the street and could help siphon out the gasoline.  I refused to turn the engine on again for fear of damaging the big diesel engine.  About 10 people gathered and pushed the van to the mechanics shop across the street.   They had a device which sucks oil out of the engine.   The son started using it to suck the gasoline out of the diesel tank.     We started talking about the old days, pre-Islamic revolution, when mixed-gender swimming and entertainment was allowed and this was a bustling resort in the summers.   The merchants miss that.  Apparently, those were profitable times.

Suddenly the owner's son had a suggestion.   Since the repair was slow work, they would take us to a restaurant on an island in the lagoon and then treat us to a speedboat ride.    Nice.   

The restaurant had its own boat.   They ferried us to the island.  We had nice lunch.  There were men water skiing around us, but women had to stay covered head-to-toe and just watched.   Hard to digest for non-locals (maybe locals too).   

After lunch we took a nice speedboat ride through the lagoon.  One section had reeds with waterways in between.  Another section was a vast water lili field.  Very beautiful.  See the pictures and videos.  Leila was driving the boat and enjoying it.  Beautiful place.

Eventually the car was ready.   Messy business.   I was covered with fuel, dirt, grime, and oil from having slid under the car on my back and staying close to the repairs.  We lost most of the day.

Fortunately, there was time to kill.   Because of the 3-day weekend, the Tajikistan Embassy in Tehran would not open again until after their weekend.   All we could do was kill time, and we would rather kill that time on the Caspian Sea coast than Tehran.

The next day drove to Raamsar, another town on the Caspian.  Mountains come close to the sea.  Beautiful scenery.

On the way there we stopped at an interesting tea shop.   The gentleman who owned the shop was a retired teacher who does not like to sit idle.  

His daughters are physicians and attorneys.  The doctors practice in U.K. and U.S.   Very neat and organized shop.  Many varieties of tea.   When he saw our interest in tea, he left his store to his assistant and took us to a parcel of land he owned, a former tea plantation with tea bushes still on it.   Told us all about tea from plant to preparation.  We learned the difference between the green tea (unfermented) and black tea (fermented), and the process of drying tea.   Most tea harvest is now mechanized, as opposed to hand-picking the leaves.   The cost of labor is too high and competition too keen for hand-picking of leaves be economically feasible and profitable.

Arrived at hotel Ramsar.  Nice looking hotel.  White building situated among citrus groves at the base of sloping mountain.

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 Nice view of the sea just below eye level. 

During our check-in they wanted to see our marriage certificate as a pre-requisite to check-in!   I am 59 year old.  My wife is a few years behind me.   I took that as a compliment, but they seemed very serious about it.    I told them we were visitors and that we don't really travel with our marriage certificate in our pockets to prove that Adriana and I are married!   Never mind that our daughter was with us and we had our passports.  The hotel's manager said they get audited every night by the authorities and the hotel can get into big trouble if they cannot show a copy of the marriage certificate for rooms where a man and a women have checked in together.  "Sorry we don't have it."  Their solutions in situations like this, was to split the husband and wife, and place them in different rooms on separate floors - presumably under observation!  Except the hotel was full and no spare rooms were available.  The receptionist started to sweat and was nervous and seemed somewhat angry.  The manager, assistant manager, accountant, and public relations manager (I think this latter was a government agent who watch over "things") all had a whispering meeting and decided to let us check-in, "quietly and discretely"!   Okaaaaaay!     So, yours truly, my wife, and our daughter "quietly and discretely" checked into Hotel Ramsar.   This was the only hotel in Iran that asked for our marriage certificate.   Others did not.  

There is a special police in Iran, called morality police.   Apparently anytime a man and a woman are together (in car, walking in park, in a restaurant, etc.), they must have documentation with them to prove that they are either married, brother-sister, or father-daughter.   We were not approached by this morality police, but many locals could readily recognize them and point them to us!     For the life of me, I could not distinguish them from others in public places, but, somehow, the locals and our taxi drivers could recognize and point them out!  Morality police also see to it that women's covers meet the regulations.

Nice hotel.   It was built over 40 years ago, during the reign of the last Shah of Iran.  Intersting looking restaurant.  Dirty table cloths.  Polite, but untrained waiters, especially the younger ones.  Since the government has declared most of what, elsewhere, is considered as "entertainment" activities illegal, guests were mostly walking around and sitting in the lobby.  Most faces seemed austere and subdued.  Most of the hotel had worn carpets and furnishings.  Rickety  elevator.  The elevator shook and made a slight noise and, as it climbed, we noticed some floors did not have inside elevator doors.

A funny scene at check-in time with the "bell boys".  They were not trained in the Western hospitality industry's sense of what bell boys do!    Our bell boy "lined up" the baggage and the guests.  Then assigned one or two pieces of our own baggage to us (I am not making this up!).  Finally he decided which one he was going to take upstairs - which was not the heaviest one!  We eventually reminded him that we had bad backs and perhaps he should bring the baggage to the room.  He did.

Raamsar hotel has beautiful gardens and scenery.   Met a few of the gardeners.  Very nice, generous, and pleasant folks.   Invited me to share their mid-day meal.   Asked if I cared to join them on the ground and "break bread".  Later that day, I observed them at work.  For tools, they were using the restaurant's cutlery!   Seemed funny to watch adults trim the flowers with restaurant's knives and till the ground with forks!   They conjured images of overgrown children in a playground's sandbox, digging the ground with spoons and forks!  Bless their hearts. I was trying hard not to gaze to embarrass them.  Would have loved to have pictures, but it just did not seem appropriate to do so.

Despite hardships, what an incredibly admirable job of raising an upright and highly accomplished family.  

Our friend had a beautiful house.  The children and the grandchildren were all around.   Very emotional reunion, after nearly 50 years.   Lots of crying, hugging, and tears of joy.   May he and his family be blessed with excellent health, happiness, and good fortune.

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On the way to the village and back we passed through a beautiful forested mountain road.   However, all along the sides were covered with discarded garbage!   Nothing but garbage everywhere you looked.  At some picnic areas it was so bad that people were forced to spread their blankets over the discarded trash.  Unbelievable.    Thousands of people throw their garbage out of the cars and around them.  No one, it seems, uses a trash bag to keep and haul their trash away.   Later, I asked around.   There is no trash collection or disposal in rural areas (at least in the ones we passed by).  So, trash accumulates day after day, month after month.... Really sad.   The scenery here was once so beautiful and serene.  Some roadside cafes pile the garbage, pour kerosene on the pile and set it on fire.  The left-over non-combustible pile just keeps growing next to the restaurant.  Plastics have made it worse. The containers do not decompose and the bags are blown away.  Millions of plastic bags are blown by the wind and get stuck to the branches and bushes.  Needless to say, it was depressing, especially since the nature, the forests, the sea, and the high mountains are so beautiful.    

If local people and visitors, like us, keep bringing up the environmental issue and raise the collective consciousness, perhaps someday this beautiful area can be restored back to its pristine natural beauty.

That night we went back to our hotel in Raamsar.   The next day we headed for Tehran.  Except the nearest mountain road to Tehran was closed by the road police.   Some trouble at a tunnel a few kilometers ahead.  We were redirected to a different road.  A 6-hours detour!   Continued East along the Caspian seashore. 

Stopped for dinner at a place called Naranjestan.   Very modern and clean place.  Looked like a Hawaiian resort.    There were so many people who wanted to go there that they charge a hefty entrance fee, redeemable at the restaurants or shops.    Clean, immaculate, modern, aesthetically and architecturally balanced and beautiful.  We had tried to reserve a room here, but they were full.   After dinner, we continued on the road to Tehran.   All north-south roads here are mountainous and beautiful once you get out of the cities.    We stopped somewhere in the mountains, parked near the road and slept in our camper.

With respect to security, the Iranian countryside and roads seemed safe.   None of the worries that one would suffer in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, or Russia.    Thank goodness for that!  A few years ago I visited Iranian Baluchistan to film a particular short-nose crocodile which still barely survives in areas bordering Pakistan.   Although, in the aftermath of 911 there have been much bombing and death across the border from Iran (Afghanistan and Pakistan), the Iranian side seemed safe and calm.   Or, maybe it was just my good dumb luck that nothing happened!  I had a great time during my weeklong stay among the Baluchi tribesmen of Iran.   We (my Baluchi sometime-smuggler sometime-guide always-friend; and I) had fun and laughed a lot going from village to village along the river in search of the elusive crocodile; and listening to the villagers' tales of the beasts eating their goats!

So, we slept in the camper among the mountain peaks by ourselves. 

 It was cold at night, on August 1st. We had to keep the heater running all night.   We were near an 18000ft (5678 meter) dormant volcano, Damaavand.    Early in the morning, I woke up and drove towards Tehran, while still dark, with Leila and Adriana asleep in the camper.   Just before dawn, we came upon young cadets running across the road in some sort of exercise.   Lucky we did not hit them.   It was a close call.  Later, we passed by two ski areas.  There were still some snow patches visible.  This was the first week of August.