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It was a hard decision to leave Esfahan. Bias or not, Esfahanis love their city, and many consider it 'half the world'. Nagshe Jahan Square (it's not a fucking square) is downright beautiful and such an awesome place to picnic. As the sun sets there are families dotted everywhere eating stuff and drinking tea while the sound of hooves breaks the ambience every minute or so.

 

I hopped in a taxi a got ripped off by $2 to be taken to the bus terminal. I CBFd finding another and it was getting a bit late. I got my value back after the driver started pumping Empire of the Sun and Metronomy, then started dancing in the taxi, and screamed out SEX and DISCO. It was pretty good shit and a nice way to leave town. That said I would not want a female loved-one to get in a taxi with this guy. Mugshot:

 

Whiskey!!! Cognac!!! He says.

 

 

I caught a night bus to Kermanshah. It's meant to be pretty cool. Well I got there and decided then would be a good time to read the guidebook about it. Well turns out Kermanshah has old historic shit like rock carvings etc etc etc . Seen enough of those. I'm falling out of love with history. I've seen a zillion (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) mosques, shrines, etc that it's all the same to me. I've become an ignorant tourist. I admit it. Too late, I was in Kermanshah at 7am, drowsy as a dead rock and the friendly ladies on the bus kept saying bye to me while the unfriendly taxi drivers yelled in my ear "Can I rip you off?".

 

Annoyed, I put my backpack on and started walking towards town (5kms) but gave up after two and flagged down a taxi who wanted to rip me off more again. Tourists pay double the locals. Iran is hospitable but the taxi drivers are still dishonest, with exception of course. I got to the hotel and it was nothing like what the book says. I'm starting to think my book was written by real estate agents who are known to polish turds. Sheets were dirty, had hair from either four average men or one very hairy man, cigarette holes in the sheets, the shower leaked, it was a shared (SQUAT) toilet, no aircon, facing west afternoon sun. I started to cry a little and then I manned up, beat my chest like a silverback, then kicked a hole in the double-brick wall just for fun. I lay down next to all the other hair and said fuck this I'm a MAN. Then I exfoliated my pinky finger and tried to find somewhere to eat mini-muffins and lemon-tarts for lunch.

 

Venturing out of my hotel, I found a lot of men standing around. Just standing around doing

• and
• as above

 

What's the dealio, they're all YUPs retired @ 30 or is it a Kermanshan ritual? I want in either way. Onwards to my lunch I go anyway, the eccentric little hidden place that's meant to have good food. Enroute I'm subjected to many "something something CHINNE" equating to "oh look a Chinese!", and sometimes a few "CHING CHING CHONG" which I find amusing and don't take offence to. It's not their fault the Chinese popped out over a billion people, I understand completely that they think all Asians are Chinese. I think all whining bitches are Darlinghurstian so I guess I'm equally ignorant.

 

I get to the place and the guy there serves up some good English. He's self taught, and worked as a translator during the Iraq-Iran war, translating books and manuals for the army apparently. His food was ok, but unfortunately does the same thing alot of other restaurants do - serve hot food on a cold plate. I'm sure you're aware now that my stomach is either a bitch or I keep getting poisoned by some secret society/cult. So I'm quite paranoid about what i eat and warm meat is one of the things I sweat about. So after a little cry I beat my chest again and swallowed the kabab whole and drank half a litre of water without coming up for air once.

 

Not much else happened during the day, except

 

• I drank lots of carrot juice. It's actually nice and I don't want anyone to know I like it. Men are meant to hate this stuff so if anyone asks it tastes like rat piss ok.
• I tried and failed to find Homa restaurant. I don't know why they don't hire people to go out looking for tourists looking for their restaurant. I'd put it in the suggestion box but well, I can't find that either. PS guidebook your maps are shit and the size of spoon & fork symbol means the restaurant is about 900m in diameter which doesn't help to find a tiny doorway.
• I later returned to the lunch restaurant (the name is in the book which is over there and too far) and was invited by three girls to join their bubbly-smokey thing session (it's a huge bong pretty much). I initially refused twice as per custom but they insisted. So I joined them and their English was as good as watching cricket. Need I say more! The good part was that they were all ridiculously good looking. I can't understand what's the go with the gene pool in Iran but it's up their.

 

That night I had the shittest sleep since 1986 which was when I was one year old and couldn't sleep because I was really bored. The hotel was retaining heat from the day and the single window offered no crossflow. Once again if my hotel had a suggestion box I would offer to knock down the opposite two rooms and create an open balcony with a pool, perhaps two palm trees next to my bed and some underpaid kids to wave palm leaves at me while I sleep. One can only dream, but you don't get to dream when you sleep (sic) in an oven.

 

Next morning and I checkout and head back to the terminal to go to Sanandaj. This is the centre of Kurdistan region, quite close to the Iraqi border and a short drive from Baghdad where all the bad shit happens. I'm feeling more and more man each day. The bus to Sanandaj cost $1 for 120kms and the period Mercedes bus had some clever post-release engineering to its cooling system aka lift the bonnet.

 

 

Well it does the job ok even if they jam you into little corners with no leg room thus cutting off circulation to your legs which later means amputation and its all down hill from there.

 

So I'm in Sanandaj now and from my 1.4 star hotel is where I write. I now have a private squat toilet but a shared shower. You can't win in this price range. Oh guidebook, you're wrong again you piece of crap (shared shower as above). I wish I didn't pay $7 for my guidebook now. I've only gotten maybe $3.50 out of it so far.

 

There are many Kurds around here and they wear these puffy traditional pants which hipsters call chinos. Yea hipsters, you're 500 years too late! I'm even more of an alien here than in Kermanshah. I'm the only tourist here it seems. I walked around today for a good 5 hours and didn't see any other aliens. Which is kinda cool I guess. You feel special when everyone whispers behind your back and pretends they're not talking about you when in fact their dilated pupils and attempted-secret-nudge gives away their game-plan.

 

There's more carrot juice here as well. Actually there's a shit load of fresh produce here, it's a huge farming area I gather. Between Kermanshah and here that's all I saw, heaps of bloody farms. Strangely I also saw a lot of ten story apartment buildings in various stages of construction. Normally when you see this then the areas around it are becoming quite dense. But here, it's a low density of high-density housing but they're all empty. It's quite strange. It's as though they're expecting thousands of new migrants that will never come. I think perhaps someone is making a lot of money off these constructions which someone else thought were necessary. That's all conjecture that I'm pulling outta my butt. Could be anything.

 

I also went for a haircut today. I sit down and tell the barber "SE" and point at the clippers. That means THREE. Well he starts buzzing away and I say hang on buddy, that's not SE that's more like YEK (1). And sure enough it's bloody 1. And he gestures and mumbles something that I take to mean "yea this is a 1, but with the clippers its +2 so it totals 3". It bloody says 1 on the attachment, I don't know what this guy is talking about. But I think about the upside - no shampoo which I haven't been using anyway. There's also increased aerodynamic efficiency which is really important during extreme high speed sports, or other shit like that that I never do but am now considering.

 

Have a nice day everyone. Not many pictures because net sucks. BADLY