Cities built on rolling sand dunes of desert, malls and malls and malls, friendly south asians and phillipinos and some guys dressed the way everyone should dress in such climates, but looking almost out of place in the 85% imported environment.

I dosed up on coffees (sharjah being a dry emirate) and the universally identical environments of trans-national retail franchises before the next big culture shock.

(Boris- more notes available).

Tehran lives up to it’s reputation as an extraordinarily lively city, it’s exhilarating.

More shops than I ever imagined could exist, clustered into districts (sports, lighting, health, paper, bike parts &c.) with the black hole of the Bazaar in the centre.  You can spend an hour walking and see only shoe shops, hundreds, probably thousands, of them.  Things change a bit in the North, with more up-market malls and brand stores, I guess none official.  Detecting the difference between imitation and genuine article is a game you can’t help but be drawn into.

And traffic.  The driving here might scare a Neopolitan.  Almost nowhere seeems out of bounds for motorbikes and the pavement is often treated as an extra lane.  Not that lanes, or other rules (red lights, one way streets, headlamps) count for much.  If you want to get across a street you usually have to step out into the traffic playing a kind of frogger game hopping between minute spaces to stop cars and trusting the bikes to weave around you.  Or hide behind someone else who’s crossing.

The smog and risk of meeting a sorry end under a motor vehicle are tiring; as an alternative to the parks, to refresh mind and sinuses, I made a long trip across the city to Durban, an area popoular for hikes into the mountains, where loads of restaurants and cafes compete for passing trade.

wordpress gallery makes no sense at all.

On the journey of a hunt for vegetarian cuisine (a primary mode during the trip so far), I came across an exhibition of Iranian graphic arts, at the Iranian Artist’s Forum.  The IAF is situated in the Tehran Garden, along with a theatre and a wonderful (for being..) vegetarian restaurant.