Monotonous monotony

Read / lees in : Nederlands

Let me start by saying that we think Iran is a marvellous country. Among other things because of its long history of which the remains have survived the ages extremely well. Apart from that we got the impression that the country is well organised and it’s, despite the language barrier, quite easy to explore it independently. But after a week or two we started to find everything rather monotonous. Last time I already spoke about the colours, everything is black. Or adobe. And yes, on the long run that does get boring. On top of that, every time  we had to drive from one city to the next we went through seemingly endless deserts. A considerably monotonous landscape if you ask me. Once we arrived at the new destination we’d see a Jameh mosque that looked just like all the other mosques. After we’d finished photographing that thing and/or a mausoleum we’d normally walk through the local bazaar, past the inevitable carpet vender, looking for a restaurant where we could flush down our daily portion of kebab with rice with a glass of pomegranate juice.

If we visited a traditional house or palace for a change, there would be, without exceptions, a pool in front of it, and it would feature, just like the uniform mosques, a decorated dome. Everywhere we’d go everybody and his mother drove around like lunatics in their boring Peugeot model: the 405GLX. But the worst case of monotony were the Iranians themselves, because they’re such friendly people. Extremely tiresome. All the time they were being so fucking nice to us. Never ever on their best grumpy behaviour or at least snippy. Always so helpful and interested in us that it made us go crazy. Trying to con us? Forget about it. Arresting me when I was flying my drone yet another time in a restricted area? Not even in your dreams. The most annoying part of it is not that they are so friendly, but that you come off as such an asshole in comparison.

Instant update: Yes! My faith in humanity muslims has been restored on the very last day of our stay in Iran. There was a problem with my car, something with the electronics. I think that in the end they only replaced a fuse, and for that I was charged over 250 US$. In the nick of time they broke with the everyday. Hurray!