Iran Trip 2009 from Adam Teale on Vimeo.

In February 2009 I was fortunate to spend 3 weeks traveling in Iran (a.k.a Persia).

In those 3 weeks I got to explore Rasht, Tehran, Shiraz, Persepolis, Maybod, Yazd and along the way I met by some of the most friendly & welcoming people I have ever met.

Iran thank you very much for this incredible adventure!

Music: Iranian musician by the name of Homay (Saied Jafar-zadeh) – http://www.last.fm/music/Mastan%2B%2526%2BHomay

26 Comments

• At Sun 7, February 2010, Ben wrote:

  I didn't want that video to end - loved it!

  I find out tomorrow if my visa application has been approved or rejected. If successful, I'll arrive in Tehran in April. Any travel tips?

  Thanks.

• At Sun 7, February 2010, Mohanad Abrahim wrote:

  Amazing , saw your tweet and say hey lets see Iran

  May be i should visit there sometime .

• At Mon 8, February 2010, Adam wrote:

  Thanks guys!

  @Ben - best of luck with your visa application, I am sure you will be fine. Out of interest how much is costing you? I paid €55 in Istanbul a year ago.

  Travel tips - hmmm, i wish i'd spent more time up in the north west. I highly recommend the Trans Asia express train from Istanbul to Tehran - 3 days and is incredible.

  Make sure you take cash into Iran, a mate of mine didn't but luckily a random Iranian dude on the train leant him €400!

• At Mon 8, February 2010, arnika knight wrote:

  awesome video...going in April and really looking forward to it, especially after that video, going to take the train as well, which looking AMAZING in the winter. nice work

• At Tue 9, February 2010, Ben wrote:

  I live in Korea so I applied through a visa agency, which cost me 35 EUR. It'll be more on top paid at the Iranian embassy in Seoul, and I'm anticipating something higher than your 55. Anywhere up to 100.

  Thanks for the tips. I've decided to follow your advice and fly into Istanbul from Kuala Lumpur after the SE Asia leg of my trip, then catch the Trans-Asia express to Tehran as you did. I love train journeys. I heard about the cash situation, I'll be prepared.

  Cheers Adam!

• At Tue 9, February 2010, Anna A wrote:

  Fantastic video! I'm headed to to Iran for 3 weeks over Norouz and cannot wait (first time). Thanks for sharing!

• At Tue 9, February 2010, Adam wrote:

  Thanks Arnika! I hope u have as good a time as I did! The Trans Asia express is fantastic, check out http://seat61.com - it's got all the good info. Let me know how ur trip goes!

• At Thu 11, February 2010, fran wrote:

  I am so jealous! two trips to Iran and nothing I made is as good as this. So happy you loved the country as much as i do. thank you.

• At Fri 12, February 2010, Lior wrote:

  Hey Adam!

  im Israeli, and therefor can not go to Iran, unfortunately. even more sadly after seeing your great video!

  but, i do study about Iran in the university. im doing a research about tourism in Iran/ Shiraz, and would love it if you can help me with that. seems like you had quite an experience, and i could use your advise.

  if you would like to help me, please contact me at lior_laufer@yahoo.com

  Thanks a lot!

  Lior

• At Sat 13, February 2010, taariq hassan wrote:

  I loved Iran except for the food and would love to go back and see some of the NW and NE rather than the centre . Koshon was a real highlight esp. the day I woke up and it had snowed on the hills in the desert. That town was exactly the way I imagined Persia to be like.

  Shame about the Govt. They are just evil barbarians, unlike the people who are fab . and the language is beautiful.

• At Tue 16, February 2010, Parisa wrote:

  Hay Adam !

  I really enjoyed watching this video, and I am so happy that you have enjoyed visiting my country, Iran.

  It is so nice that you recommend visiting Iran to others.

  Bests,

  Parisa

• At Wed 17, February 2010, Amir wrote:

  Amazing amazing video.

  Other than the wonderful experience you've shared with us, those portraits at the end of the video give me goosebumps, awesome. I couldn't thank you enough for these.

  P.S. If you don't mind let me know what did you use to edit the photos ?

  Cheers

• At Wed 17, February 2010, John wrote:

  Hi Adam -- video incredibly well done. Had to see it again back-to-back. And your music bed is extraordinary. Thanks for info on that. You truly understand Iran. Will be there in May 2011. We hope something very good happens to you resulting from this production. -- John

• At Thu 18, February 2010, Adam wrote:

  Wow thank you all for the positive feedback!

  @Amir - thanks! All my photos were RAW and processed in Aperture 2 & Photoshop CS3.

  @John - thank you! I definitely understand very little about Iran! But I was lucky enough to keep my mind pretty open whilst I was over there and I think that helps being in a place that is so heavily judged from the outside. Pretty much every person I met over there was incredibly helpful and friendly and curious about my opinions on Iran. Would love to hear about your experiences when you get over there. Have a great trip!

• At Mon 1, March 2010, Piet Osefius wrote:

  Hi Adam,

  Your video is fantastic, good work! It's a nice example to show the quality of your magnificent Lumix LX3 travel companion. I'm running a LX3 blog for Dutch speaking people and I published your video. I hope you don't mind.

  Best regards,

  Piet

• At Mon 1, March 2010, Adam wrote:

  Hey Piet!

  Thank you very much!

  Thank you for reposting my video on your blog, I really appreciate it!

• At Tue 23, March 2010, Maria wrote:

  Hi Adam

  My boyfriend have been trying to convince me to go to Iran for a while and I just wouldnt have any of it. Beeing Danish makes it a bit worse though.

  But after he showed me this amazing video I have been less reluctant and we are now planing to go very soon.

  Thank you :-)

  Maria

• At Sat 3, April 2010, Alex wrote:

  This video was nice and it was showing enjoyable moments that I hope you liked it, but apparently this trip was not showing the real face of Iran this was arranged for a lower class trip for student type tourists. The video and music was incredible and you did a perfect job!

  Please watch this video to see the True Iran!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3dMnIbZ6q0&feature=related

• At Sat 3, April 2010, Alex wrote:

  Life is too short just see beautiful things, think calm and relax, live to generate enjouyable moments remeber we can not fix anything, what do you see behind this face in the first shut of your video.....

  ++Kish Island, Iran..... Flower of the East

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnBcdwzRrFQ&feature=related

• At Sat 3, April 2010, Adam wrote:

  Hey Alex! Thanks for your comments!

• At Sat 3, April 2010, Adam wrote:

  Hi Maria!

  I hope you make it to Iran and have as good a time as I did!

  Please let us know about your journey wen you get over there!

  Happy travels!

• At Tue 6, April 2010, maryam wrote:

  HI

  I got really happy that you enjoyed so much of your trip and made this wonderful video. I need your permission to post this page on my facebook profile.

  thanks

  hope to c u again in Iran

• At Sat 10, April 2010, ola wrote:

  amazing video. Its mean there live normal people just world shows them in bad light. Better for us who wanna see still pure Iran :) Im going next week there. Cant wait!

• At Mon 12, April 2010, Sandra wrote:

  Hi Adam!

  Friend of mine introduced me to your Jakkayarn video and got 'lured' here. :)

  It's a really awesome video. Did you take the stills with the LX3 as well?

  Hope to see more of your creative stuff!

  Cheers!

  Sandra

• At Fri 18, June 2010, hitesh wrote:

  lovely video

  iran looks very very beautiful

• At Fri 25, June 2010, Louis wrote:

  Thanks for sharing your trip with us Adam,it puts a very human face to country which receives so much unnecessary negative press in the west.

  I`v visited Turkey on a couple occasions and the hospitality shown by the people there is amazing and i`m sure this is the case across the region.

  Louis.....

I took the overnight bus from Shiraz to Tehran, checked back into the Mashad Hotel on Amir Kabir street and spent the day checking out the Golestan Palace and the Grand Bazaar.

The museums in the palace are definitely worth a look – you can either pay per museum (about 4000 rials each) or get a ticket to see them all. I have never seen such a reflective bunch of rooms – so many mirrors! Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take any photos in the main palace part (sorry forgot the name!), but did get some in the other museums.

The grand bazaar is indeed grand, couldn’t say if it was on the scale of JJ market in Bangkok, but it could be. I met some guys who owned a carpet shop but wasn’t forced to buy one. I think I might actually have some basic knowledge of person carpets now after the amount I have seen

I only spent the night in Tehran and jumped a bus from the east terminal to Rasht. Why Rasht? To go see the Caspian Sea. I had intended to check out the town of Masouleh which I’d heard a lot of good things about but in the end ran out of enthusiasm to get there. I met 2 lads in my hotel who were keen to show me a bit around Rasht and took me to check out the Caspian Sea. We also stopped in at Bandar-e Anzali which would be a great place to spend some time in the summer.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Tim who I met in Yazd – he’d been exploring a fair amount of the NW of Iran and also managed to get taken in by the police for taken some photos (he said they eventually let him go and it was just a formality!).

After Rasht I bussed it to my last stop in Iran – Tabriz.

Tabriz is cool.

I arrived in Tabriz at about 4:30am and most of the cheap hotels were shut or full so I splashed out and spent 4 times by 50,000 rials/night budget. Money not well spent.
Whilst checking some emails I bumped into Yann the Frenchman who had ridden his $300 mountain bike 18,000+ kms from Singapore to Iran and was continuing on back to France. What a journey!

I ended up meeting 3 great people by the names of Babak, Reza & Amir – Reza runs the cafe net and Babak & Amir are his mates. Pretty much spent my whole time in Tabriz hanging out with these chaps. They took me out the see a bunch of places, got up early to meet me for breakfast at the local breakfast place, and didn’t let me pay for anything! When they make it to Australia one day I said I’d get the bill.