Tue 19:00

Tehran, IR. 19:00

As I blundered arround Tehran in the dark last night a man ran into the street and thrust a KitKat chunky into my hand shouting "Welcome to Iran!"

Actually the people of Tehran have been altogether less "in your face" as, I suspect, they are slightly more used to foreign faces. That doesn't mean people don't stare just a lot less and fewer people spontaneously say hello.

This is the embassy quarter which is readily identified by high walls and Diplomatic Police - distinguished from the Army (police) by sitting in boxes with "Diplomatic Police" written on them. The Russians have a whole block to themselves and seem to have built a residential blocks of flats of the most preposterously ugly design. Perhaps that explains the "No Photo Graphy" signs.

I hadn't realised but I've walked past the British Embassy a couple of times but only when you peer at the signs closely would you know. No obvious 60s carbuncle on our block of Tehran.

The hotel is placed quite conveniently for the museums -- that wasn't my goal, I'd picked it as it was the cheapest of the mid-range hotels in the guide ($29 per room in the guide, $46 in practice).

Gliding in last night there were a lot of expensive optics (read: sunglasses) shops and a trundle round the corner reveals a lot of music (keyboards, guitars, amps), hi-fi and electronics shops with most of the usual brands (Sony, Panasonic, Yamaha, Samsung, etc.) and the latest TVs etc..

I'd headed up the road looking for the Armenian Club. I'm pretty sure it was the entrance where a guy dressed like an Orthodox Priest was being ushered in. I didn't feel like jumping in front of him and asking if they'd let me in for some nosh so I trogged up the road and entered a restaurant that seemed to be associated with a "coffeshop" (as in sells (proper) coffee not sit down and drink it) where I was the only other customer and, as it turned out, they only did Nescafe. I don't know what the Middle East does with Nescafe, I can only think they pour scalding water on the granules to get it to taste so bad but across the ME it, "Nescafe," is universally awful.

They had an Efes (Turkish beer) chiller on the counter but, surprise, surprise, no Efes. They, like many other places serve, Ahmad Tea, of London.

Apropos nothing:

• CCTV inside buildings has been very prevalent and as I walked up the street earlier there was a video intercom on an otherwise non-descript building.
• I don't know how they've done it but the Iranians seemed to have replaced en masse every single candescent lighhtbulb with a CFL. Almost exclusively a large spiral (solenoid) shaped affair too. Think of all those lightbulbs you might have had in a restaurant ceiling, all shops and business premises, outdoor lights etc. etc. all replaced with CFLs.
• They're very keen on a sort of embossed card bread -- like a sandwich wrap but less flexible. It seems to be made in great sheets which are cut into roughly 10cm squares twenty slices thick. A chunk is normally ready on your table in a plastic bag. It's not always embossed with a pattern but sometimes it is. Odd.

Other matters:

I went to retrieve my washing powder to find the top had come offso spent a bonus 20 mins emptying a pannier and retrieving the powder from the bottom.

I asked the hotel man here to confirm where on the 3rd party insurance document the price and duration were to alert future travellers and he then proceeded to phone the head man at Bargazan to explain I'd been had. Of course the head man said I was being charged a service fee for The Git whereas the EUR100 was specifically for insurance. I wasn't around to explain when he phoned not that I was expecting any refund. But hey, it was good of him to phone.

The only failing of this bijou hotel is that the air con was left blasting away all night. It's just a vent in the room which I can't reach (or am not meant to reach at any rate). It has, however, been off all today.

I trotted down to the jewels museum and trotted back because it was closed. I'd misread the opening hours. I trotted back and it had to be said they have a lot of jewels and claim it is only 10% of the collection. There are so many jewels you begin to wonder if they can all be real. Things are liberally encrusted and finely painted from plate covers (think tagine lids) through to bejewels rings to keep horses tails in check as well as shiny bits for under their chins. You'd be longing for a bit of plain earthenware after while to eat your chips off.

Whilst trying to find the National Museum of Iran I wandered past the National Library with a Down with America/Down with Isreal poster on the gates (facing inward, not toward the street). That's the only suchlike I've seen so it's hardly common place. But then it could be written a lot in Farsi all around me.

The National History of Iran museum was something of a let down. Again, rather overplayed by the LP. Yes, they've got a few nice things they've whipped from Persepolis but otherwise it wasn't much more than in the dinky museum in Orumiyeh.

I then lounged in nearby park being gradually squeezed to the end of the seat by various groups of Iranian women aranging to meet their husbands (I presume).