Hi from Rick: Souvenirs from Iran
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| Here's Iran looking at you, kid. |
Dear Traveler,
Walking down the jet way to my Air France plane at Tehran's Ayatollah Khomeini Airport, I saw two blonde flight attendants — hair flowing freely — at the plane's door. It was as if they were pulling people symbolically back into the Western world. The plane was like a life boat, and passengers boarded with a sigh of relief. Women whipped off their head scarves. Suddenly, we were all free to be what (to us) is normal.
For ten days I'd been out of my comfort zone in a land where people lived under a theocracy — a land which found different truths to be god-given and self-evident. I tasted not a drop of alcohol (Islam is dry). I never encountered a urinal (Islamic men sit). Women were not to show their hair or shape of their bodies (they were beautiful never-the-less). And people took photos of me, as if I was the cultural spectacle.
On my first day back in Europe (in Italy), I noticed hair, necklines, and tight pants like never before. I sipped wine as if it was heaven-sent. And every time I peed standing up I was thankful to be a Westerner.
But I gained a respect for people who are living what they call a "values revolution" — a respect that I could only gain from actually traveling there. And I overcame some of the fears that plague many who have yet to visit Iran.
This experience has reminded me of a fundamental value of traveling. When we travel — whether to a land our president has declared part of an "Axis of Evil" or just to a place where people yodel when they're happy — we enrich our lives and better understand our place on this planet.
This month's Travel News is dedicated to this proposition. You'll find a slideshow of my Iran trip, a link to my trip blog, plus articles on how to travel...anywhere...in ways that connect you not just with places, but with people.
Those are the souvenirs that matter.
Happy travels,
Rick