I’d like first to enumerate some terms defining how the women are covered, in order: headscarf < hijab (you saw the whole face) < chador (the extension of the hijab to cover the whole body until the toes, usually black)…
Iran’s political system
As an Islamic theology, Iran has a very particular political system, which can be split in 2 parts to simplify it: the “normal” democratic branch with elected presidency (now Ahmadinejad) and parliament; and the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council is…
Iran, Behind the scene
On the surface, Iran is beautiful and wonderful. After some discussions with Iranians, you however better understand the political and economical situation. The economy is however in a bad situation, on the down side, everybody told me “it is going…
Last days in Tehran
When we arrive, we were supposed to go to our CS host respectively, but we figured out we had the same! As the metro is closing before 11pm in Tehran, we arrived too late. So we shared a taxi to…
Kashan
I took the bus in the afternoon to Kashan and arrived about 18:30. My CS host was kind enough to bring me from the bus terminal. I was just the first of many other guests at his place: Raquel and…
Islam in Egypt
The day before going to Upper Egypt, we met Yasmine in an impressive modern mall in Cairo. She used to be a student of teacher Nagui, now working and finishing an MBA. Yasmine is an open minded woman with strong…
Results of the Egyptian Elections
The details of the results can be shown in [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_presidential_election,_2012]wikipedia[/url] In the first round, 3 candidates got more than 20% of the votes: Shafik, the former prime minister Morsi, an independent candidate from the party founded by the Muslim Brotherhood…
Esfahan
The bus to Isfahan was the same price as the taxi fare from Yazd city center to the bus terminal: 50000 IRR, very cheap for a 5h bus trip! If we started almost empty, some other passengers joined in the…
Yazd
I got the nightly bus to Yazd exactly one day after the five Europeans. I tried to reach them to know in which hotel to go, but I didn’t receive their SMS. Arriving at 5am, I just went to the…
Shiraz
As I have less than 20 days in Iran, I could only see a part of it, and chose to follow the classic route recommended by the Lonely Planet. I flew from Tehran to Shiraz, a ~ 1000km and 2h…